Career4Change

Pay Forward!

2010-12-21T14:53:00.003-06:00

The Holiday Season is a time for celebration and hope but for the 15.1 million unemployed in the US is a time of deep growing and reflection. Among them, there are 1.3 million discouraged workers. These are the ones that believe no jobs are available for them. Going beyond geographic bounderies there are more than 50 million jobless folks around the world.

What are YOU going to do about that during the Holidays? How are you going to help someone getting out of the statistics?

Most of the clients I talked to throughout 2010 shared a common concern: the unavailability of some of the high level contacts they had working at key jobs in big companies.

I have also heard the other side of the story which is the impossibility to refer a colleague with a poor resume to anyone or how the hectic business schedule makes helping others on this situation a not very feasible task on the daily to-do-list.

I have an answer for that. Choose to pay forward.

1. Extend your expertise to a contact. We all know people who are job transitioning on the current economy. Choose to believe in the potential of at least one of them to switch his/her situation. When we support someone to get closer to a goal is because we actually believe that person has what it takes to make it happen with some help.

2. Construct positively to add value to the person’s resources. Some of these folks feel beaten down after having applied to many jobs and contacted lots of their acquaintances with no feedback or response. This does not mean you won’t tell them what needs to be changed but also remind them that they have some strong and valuable talents/capabilities they are failing to articulate effectively into the current job market needs.

3. Be a mentor. Do not just leave it to a meeting to expect that a person will successfully launch but commit your time to follow up with him/her periodically to check on progress and offer advice and resources.

4. Provide a public positive referral. Recruiters are using social media intensively to source key candidates to their positions. Those who happen to have profiles with +5 referrals by strong advocates (e.g. LinkedIn) will have a better chance to land those jobs than their competitors. Also, refer the individual to at least 3 potential key contacts or employers.

5. Refer to appropriate resources. It may be that the person has financial constraints (e.g. pending home foreclosure), legal or emotional issues due to the length of the unemployment that go beyond your expertise or comfort. Feel free to offer community resources available on the area to facilitate a solution to the individual’s problem. Do not just leave it to the person to do it on her own but offer a list of potential resources that could be used to ease the situation.

Dare to be good! It is the Holidays after all. It is not about feeling sorry for them but to act upon the belief those people are qualified and deserve a change in their situation. They’ve got what it takes and as they’ve done it before they’ll repeat their successes if you intervene to help.

Be inspired by our own success story. I am sure you have been helped along the way by mentors, friends, relatives, neighbors and even strangers that surprised you with a great opportunity.

Move on and enjoy the joy what the kindness and generosity to others provide to your soul. After all, what most of these 15.1 million people want for Christmas is a job!

Happy Holidays!

Your Career Coach,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
25 positive referrals available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

P.S. If you still need additional inspiration to act, go and click on any of these links below:
A Real life story: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/8806478/
Good deeds for the unemployed: http://tinyurl.com/jobless-yoga
http://preview.tinyurl.com/jobless-surprise
Ideas to help: http://hubpages.com/hub/No-Christmas-This-Year

Bullied at work? How are you coping with the ‘mean kids’ in your office?

2010-10-13T14:11:00.000-05:00

According to the 2010 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey 35% of the U.S. workforce (an est. 53.5 million Americans) report being bullied at work; an additional 15% witness it. Half of all Americans have directly experienced it. Simultaneously, 50% report neither experiencing nor witnessing bullying." Even worse, the Institute reported that 54.6% of employers did nothing after receiving complaints from victims of bullying, and 28.2% of bullies were actually promoted or otherwise rewarded in the face of such complaints. Even though, the data may not be totally accurate, bullying seems to have growth as a "silent epidemic".

Bullying is present behind all forms of harassment, discrimination, prejudice, abuse, persecution, conflict and violence. When the bullying has a focus (e.g. 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 Federal and State laws), it comes out as pure bullying; this is an opportunity to understand the behaviors which underlie almost all reprehensible behavior.

There is a bias to think that the bullied at work are uneducated or unskilled workers that do not know how to interact effectively at the work environment.

The truth is far from the above. According to a WBI 2003 online survey the five top reasons individuals are targeted for bullying, in rank order, were: (1) refusal to be subservient (being independent), (2) being more technically skilled than the bully, (3) being liked by co-workers/customers (being the go-to expert), (4) being ethical and honest, and (5) not being sufficiently political.

But what can you do about it?

1. Break your silence. Tell co-workers, friends, and family. Ask for help. Put your health first. There is a lot of data that shows how harmful to your health is the continuous exposure to stress from bullying.

2. Expose the bully You've got to go as high up as you can. Talk to HR and your manager. Try to keep proofs that bullying is actually happening. Facts talk by themselves. Look for outside legal counseling, if needed, to understand your rights if the work environment does not offer you a way-out. The Workplace Bullying Institute estimates that only 20% of bullying is legally actionable, but that estimate may be low. Laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, race or other protected status may prohibit bullying, and state common laws frequently prohibit bullying behavior like harassment, infliction of emotional distress and interference in business relationships. It can be expensive to defend a lawsuit based on bullying, and the damages awarded to injured employees can be significant.

3. Keep your Brand intact. Your professionalism will be the one you’ll take with you, either you stay or leave. Record your performance goals, achievements, success stories and proofs you are the one doing what is right.

4. Be informed on what bullying means, so then you can do something about it.
Bullyonline.org offers a great chart to distinguish between harassment and bullying. Even though, the Country and State regulations’ differences, this table offers you a glimpse on what may be actually happening to you or someone you know at work.
Harassment has a strong physical component, e.g. contact and touch in all its forms, intrusion into personal space and possessions, damage to possessions including a person's work, etc.

Workplace bullying is almost exclusively psychological (e.g. criticism), may become physical later, especially with male bullies, but almost never with female bullies.

Harassment tends to focus on the individual because of what they are (e.g. female, latino, disabled, etc).
Workplace bullying: Anyone will do, especially if they are competent, popular and vulnerable

Harassment may consist of a single incident or a few incidents or many incidents.
Bullying is rarely a single incident and tends to be an accumulation of many small incidents, each of which, when taken in isolation and out of context, seems trivial.

Often the harassment is for peer approval, bravado, macho image etc while Workplace bullying tends to be secret behind closed doors with no witnesses.

5. Share best practice. Research on what other organizations have done to prevent and stop bullying. Feel free to offer proactive data on potential savings (e.g. absenteeism rate) achieved when the right measures are placed.

Bullying is far from over when we end our school years. It is a phenomenon happening to many everywhere. There is no sense to turn your head to the other side when it is very likely you’ll be subject to this situation at one point or another throughout your career.

Be smart, proactive and ready to face it if happening to you!
Recommended Sources:
http://www.workplacebullying.org/research/WBI-NatlSurvey2010.html
http://www.bullyonline.org/
Best Success,

Your coach,
Mariela
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
+20 positive public referrals at your service.

Your own job search sabotage! Is it a conspiracy theory or are you the one to be blamed?

2010-10-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

I have seen him in LinkedIn and I have got notes from him. I am sure you have met him, too. His words and tone tell you how good he could be for any job you may consider him for but he fails to articulate how he’d actually add value to you or your corporation.

He places notes on affinity group discussions offering his services to anyone willing to ‘give him a chance’.

He calls all his contacts and friends asking them for a job in any range fitting into his very generic field of expertise.

He talks non stop about how recruiters do not reply his notes or how the job market is tough these days.

He comes into a room and you feel the urge to run away to the opposite direction before he comes with the inevitable job question that he just asked you a few days ago.

Some people may feel inclined to help but very few know how to do so not knowing exactly what he could be good at!

What can you do not to be forgotten/avoided by those who have the power to open your next job opportunity but a talented professional who would be a great addition to a business?

1. Define and Sell your Brand and not just a resume. You are a whole package that goes beyond a sheet of paper; therefore, having the ability to articulate the best you have to offer to the job market in a professional way will open doors to you. Once your contacts know what you’ve done successfully they will believe in your potential and refer you more likely to a potential employer.

2. Do not burn your bridges. Unfortunately, many job seekers miss the point that networking needs to be a 2-way street to be effective. It is "getting acquainted beyond the business card" what will build the real connection to your network and empower success to all who share it. Pay forward! Be Thankful and courteous!

3. Use social media to share best practice and knowledge. You want for others to see your unique talents and the best you have to offer. Get public referrals and ensure you have a strong profile that includes your top career highlights. Be a top talent to look out and not one more profile whose status says: ‘Looking for a job’.

3. Be on time and keep your word. Do not run late for meetings even if they are held over coffee. Everyone wants an employee who is dependable and a good representative of the company. Someone who's tardy to a meeting is neither.

4. Dressing for the wrong motives (or wrong job!). Appearances matter in the job market and you should dress for what's appropriate in your field. Find out what the dress code is before you show up to a networking event or interview. You're better off erring on the side of too professional than too casual.

5. Broadcasting to your network you are all up for the right career opportunity. It is correct to assess that you have a minimum salary expectation but it is wiser to be discreet on that topic with your contacts. Talking about money too soon may close potential opportunities coming on your direction.

6. Be Open to learning and advice. When making contact to share best practice, please remember to ensure your appreciation of the information you are given and ask a lot of questions in an assertive way.

7. Keep it Positive. One of the key traits I observe when interviewing a candidate is his ‘locus of control’. I want to be able to know the perfect candidate has what it takes to cope with the job/business fluctuations to motivate himself to deliver. Negative energy scares allies and potential employers away.

8. Get out and do some face-to-face networking. Face-to-face contact and telephone conversations are essential to connect. Do not rely only on your computer to network!

9. Keep a strategic job search plan. It is not just applying through a series of never ending job posts what will land you that job but how you are articulating your job transitioning process what will make you successful in achieving your vision.

10. Rely on the power of a strong network of family and friends. They may not be able to provide you with useful job leads or referrals … but they can give you something even more valuable: friendship, unconditional love and support.
“ Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

Best Success!

Your coach,
Mariela
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
+20 positive public referrals at your service

Job scams…what actually happens to professionals like you!

2010-10-11T23:36:00.001-05:00

Leo is a highly specialized engineer with +15 years of experience in the Oil and Gas Industry who e-mailed me a few weeks ago to check on a job offer he had got from a well known company in the UK. He was excited after having exchanged some e-mails with a recruiter from that company and thrilled there was a job offer for him to be relocated to the United Kingdom. The ‘catch’ and what created discomfort on him was a payment in advance to be made to this company in order for them to process the immigration paperwork on his behalf. He e-mailed me the notes and websites provided and everything seemed ‘legitimate’ until I noticed the employer’s originating e-mail address which ended on ’@yahoo.com’. That was the obvious sign that this was a job scam.

When I performed a quick research on Internet it was obvious this company was one of the many job scams that are taking advantage of the recession to take money from those highly educated professionals that would be willing to relocate to a different country in order to make a living.

From Jan. 1, 2010 to August 31, 2010 the US Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org) received 2,431 complaints from consumers on work-at-home scams

Leo’s case is not unique. Job scams are on the rise. Be careful not to trust too easily a potential job offer when:

1. It is too good to be true. High salary potential and excellent benefits for little work and no experience necessary should be enough to make you suspicious.

2. The corporation’s use of ‘generic’ email addresses, like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail, rather than a specific business email address.

3. The employer offers the convenience of working from home and getting rich by doing it. While millions of entrepreneurs will earn their income from enterprises run from home offices nationwide millions of others will fall victim to work-at-home scams that are spread through classified ads, direct mailings, and the Internet and e-mail.

4. The hiring company asks for money upfront. On Leo’s case it meant some 'needed' money to fix immigration paperwork in the UK. Even the internet links shared by the employer can be potentially ‘hacked’ in order for you to provide personal financial information and/or make a payment.

5. The employer wants your credit report from the beginning. Though, it is true that employers may require this information to candidates that have been interviewed and who are most likely on the final stages of the selection process, it is unusual to get an e-mail from the potential employer that in order to be considered for the job, the applicant has to check his or her credit report through a recommended website. Beware of releasing confidential social security or financial information.

There is also a recent and fantastic article related to the Top 10 Job Scams That Target the Unemployed - See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/9DBZB6 - that I invite you to visit to get more information.

Remember that it is your job search process which means YOU are responsible for doing your own research. Use the public library, newspapers, the Internet, and your state employment office to find info on your potential employer and ensure you get the job that’s right for you.

Best Success,
Your Career Coach,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
+20 public positive referrals available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Your Career World Cup: Where have all your goals gone?

2010-06-22T12:14:00.002-05:00

What can the world soccer cup teach you about your Brand and what employers want? I bet you do not want to be one more job market player nobody remembers!

I am a big soccer world cup fan which means I follow the games played by my favorite teams. I laugh, scream and talk about the moves with anyone willing to share the excitement of it. I also think about how great the game turns to be when there is a dynamic goal striker and a strong goal keeper.

For a winning team you must have both players in it, but what does it mean to your career vision fulfillment? You MUST be able to switch between those two roles in order to achieve it.

The Goal striker is a human machine ready to follow on the agreed strategy to kick that ball straight to where it is supposed to go. It plays with the elements the game brings and keeps the adrenaline moving full of excitement for the crowd to CONNECT and FEEL that ball as if it were theirs! She is proactive, aggressive, strategic, dynamic and a true heart for the vision when moving along all obstacles in a ‘dance’ that brings passion to a game that can’t exist without her participation. She plays with others in order to conquer; she uses her counterparts’ failures and strengths as opportunities for her next move to get closer to her destination. She moves forward while working alongside her team and competition.

A Goal keeper is the one that keeps the ‘net’ free of balls. He’s got a vision that goes across the whole soccer field anticipating every move with enough premeditation to stop any ball. He is patient, self-controlled, mindful, defensive and sits ‘alongside’ observing/analyzing all the moves before stopping right on time any threat from the competition. He puts together the game’s puzzle while watching and deciding how to keep his vision intact.

You are a goal striker when you consciously follow the path you choose would be the most beneficial to get you closer to your career vision. You deal with the competition while obtaining what their attributes are, what your allies can do for you, what you also do genuinely and generously for them, what you understand must be learned and applied in order to get successfully to your goal. You are immersed in the field using the power of your network with everything it brings, its faults allow you to grow into a stronger player and your passion for the game connects you to your contacts/allies in a way that makes impossible for them not to believe in your unique Brand.

You are a goal keeper when you sit aside to carefully observe the trends your job niche brings. You analyze the competition, the moves your desirable target employers make. You are preparing with anticipation the required moves not just to prevent potential cracks in your Brand but to proactively assess the required attributes you need to bring to the game in order to successfully stop the risk of looking like one of the zillion copy-cats of the market. You know what the market wants and you are so ready to bring it to them. You are nothing more and nothing else that the BEST possible YOU!

You must be both a GOAL STRIKER and a GOAL KEEPER in order to be successful in being that memorable player everyone wants on their field.

You are the best of your past articulated in such a powerful present Brand connected to what the market needs in such a proactive way that your network is empowered by your moves and connected to your vision allowing your chances for success to be significantly increased.

You are THE PLAYER everyone wants to have in their winning teams, a visionary, a leader of your own Brand, a distinctive professional that is unafraid to watch and play the game at its best to meet his vision.

So, there you go and strike that goal. Hire that coach to help you identify the traits that will make YOU the exceptional player, because as Bil McCartney wisely said “All coaching is, is taking a player where he can't take himself”.

Best Success,
Your Career Coach,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
career4change@yahoo.com
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Brand's Integrity Vs. What you did not mean to…but you still did

2010-06-07T15:05:00.002-05:00

Branding is everything even if you do not know what it is, but what you know is when someone or something generates a noise in your system that does not sound quite right.

I can tell when a politician is talking without saying anything concrete on what people really need to know (I am sure you know what I am talking about) or when I get that e-mail telling me how someone I do not know in a very distant country wants to give me many millions out of nowhere for a very silly reason. It is not real; it is either a fake or a lie. People and Businesses do that all the time, don’t they?

I am sure Tony Hayward - BP CEO -did not mean to disappoint us with what he’s said to the media during the last few weeks but it seems he seemed to do so to many out there. I also believe that the Motrin manufacturers did not mean to sell an unsafe medicine for our kids, but they still did and a recall was generated. Or Toyota did not mean to hurt its Brand by contradicting messages about the issues/problems with the Toyota cars but they did!

I trust that you did not mean to mislead that potential hiring manager on your level of expertise in that particular software, but maybe you still did so! Or that you did not mean to sell that defective product to a client, but you did! Or that you did not mean to work on a contract that collided closely with your business ally's territory but you did, anyway!

Things happen! Bad thing happen to everyone. What can you do to mitigate being the originator of that noise or the ‘victim’ of it?

Decision Making is an art to master in a lifetime. A wrong turn and you are ‘history' until you manage to make a come back - if you can! One of the key evidences of your own Integrity is an open and transparent decision making process.

What distinguishes most of us is that we do not have the PR professional to define the communication strategy for our Brand or that Sales Department to handle sales. We are the CEOs of our Brand and as such we must confront the consequences of our actions whatever intended or unintended they are.

Acknowledgement is a first step on that direction. It is easy to say that others attack your Brand and because of it, your Brand gets hurt but it is wiser to say that the cracks in your Brand allow others to get in to see its weaknesses. Sit down and confront what is there in your own Brand that generates so much noise. There is a saying in my home country that states that if the river is noisy is because it brings stones meaning that if your audience is saying the ‘wrong’ things about your brand it may be you are the one to be blamed as the originator of that sound. Understand your vision and create your own Brand’s ‘white noise’ generating positive visibility and impact in those that cross paths with you.

Accountability in your decisions and their consequences. Unintended impact is always a risk, specially, when decisions are either not-well thought of, a result/product relies in a chain of providers/services or decisions are driven by emotions or quick delivery. When blaming starts getting into the picture your Brand's credibility gets highly impacted. If you are your own Brand’s CEO there is nobody else but YOU that others look at when your reputation is ‘at-risk’. When Mattel did a series of recalls with some of its toys I believe parents trusted mistakes were committed unintentionally and measures were taken for those not to be repeated, but when a famous furniture franchise business denied recalling a particularly popular bunk-bed after some kids were injured, then their Brand's integrity got damaged along the way. The same goes when your job is terminated and you blame your former manager for letting you go first or you reflect someone else’s Brand in your resume falling short on selling your own unique attributes to a potential hiring manager. You do not want to be any can of soda on that ‘job-supermarket’ aisle but the Brand that everyone wants to get in their business. Clear examples on how you can hurt your own Brand are available when you Google the key words ‘fired over Facebook’at http://tinyurl.com/24365b5.

Learning Mode On. We can all remember some very ‘popular’ class lawsuits filed against major manufacturers. We also notice news’ headlines when bashing out famous household names/personalities for potential wrong-doing. We have access to the news everyday. What about if you got the control wheel on your Brand and you could incorporate some of the big lessons available out there? It may be you are worried about equal employment opportunity, you are discriminating or feel discriminated against, or you are writing those passionate e-mails without further thought unaware that anything you do or say reflects your Brand everyday 24 hours a day! Learning is a key element in anyone’s Brand for it to survive and get into a growing mode. Go and research your own unique attributes. Clean your act, if needed. Learn from your past to build a better future.

There you go, live up to the words your Personal Brand means...Say it, do it, own it…mean it!

"Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."
Tom Peters in Fast Company, 1997

Best Success,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
Your Career Coach
'Because YOU can change what happens next'
+20 referrals available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Be strategic in your career path time investment and turn off that TV now!

2010-06-03T11:16:00.000-05:00

Are you using Internet/Data strategically in your job transitioning and market research? How deep is your understanding in what’s available and the changes you need to make in your life/career to get you closer to your vision? According to Nicholas Carr* on his book ‘The Shallow’ a constant Internet use ‘impedes the sort of comprehension and retention “deep reading” engenders’. Therefore, you develop a sort of photographic memory that stops any meaningful reflection on how the information you access impacts your path or not. Even worse, if we consider a Nielsen Wire report*, ‘the typical American consumes almost 35 hrs of TV, 2 hrs of time shifted TV, 4 hrs of internet, 22 minutes of online video and 4 minutes of mobile’.

Are you hooked in an unproductive monthly routine? Are you paralyzed and victimized by your own choices? Is it Friday already and you have achieved not even 50% of what you've planned for the week?

What about stretching out of your comfort (or TV) box and do what you know you can’t postpone any longer?

There is a big number of networking events in each town. We are more aware than ever that the biggest piece of that job success pie relies on networking. Creating and building relationships with others is key. Not just business but personal relationships. The Networking impact is much higher than the use of job boards or anything else you can think of. If you decided to switch your time wisely and spend 40 hours of your week choosing actions leading to a change in your life towards the future vision you are looking to fulfill, then you could consider creating your own agenda. An example on what a more productive monthly agenda could look like is:

- A weekly networking meeting = 8 hours a month
- Playing/exercising with others 2 times a week = 8 hours a month
- Using online networking strategically - e.g. LinkedIn - for your job search= 12 hours a month
- Watching out for job market trends while applying actively on job boards = 8 hours a month
- Having a nice date with your significant other once a month= 4 hours
- Having time to choose the life you want to have = PRICELESS!

This would still give you more time to do what’s better for you rather than just following the distraction trends most choose to follow when overwhelmed by changes/potential changes in their lives/careers.

Using technology wisely is not about having 5-6 Internet windows open at the same time in your computer screen and knowing it all but actually connecting yourself to the content in a strategic mode that allows you to make best use of the information gathered to incorporate it effectively to your action plan.

Can you commit yourself to stop the someday syndrome and begin a journey that YOU know is the one that will drive you to your VISION fulfillment.

Can you start running your own statistics and choosing wisely how you invest your time everyday?
‘Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.’ ~Ann Landers
Best Success!

Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
Your Strategic Professional Branding and Career Coach
'Because YOU can change what happens next'
+ 20 Positive Referrals are available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
* Nielsen Report: http://tinyurl.com/32tezj3
* Nicholas Carr's Blog: http://www.roughtype.com/

A Miracle Maker on the way

2010-05-13T13:53:00.001-05:00

Make some room for this amazing miracle maker. This individual can make anything happen when committed to it. That person can be YOU!

These last weeks have been incredibly busy and full of successful stories. People that have worked hard – and smart – to achieve a vision. People who have not given up and have made lemonade out of the lemons thrown at them.

I’d like to share a couple of these stories that clearly probe that 'YOU can change what happens next’.

One of the stories is about a marvelous high potential corporate employee who was severed after having demonstrated his performance at his best all around the world. He felt betrayed but not defeated when he made contact with me the first time a year or so ago. He had a clear vision and went for it. He built a stronger network and became a familiar face in the affinity professional group he chose to be active part of. He got a job offer very soon at a mid size company and kept doing what he knew how to do at his best. A couple of months ago I was contacted again by him to run a Branding Interviewing session. He was being pursued by a major corporation. Not long after he started the screening process with this company he was also approached by a second major organization. What can be better than having a job and two potential job offers at great multinational corporations? He had the luxury of choosing what he believed was the top employer of the two and the one that offered him the opportunity of continuing his career progression.

My second story is not about a client but a role model for all. I connected a few weeks ago with someone in LinkedIn I though had quite a distinctive Brand. As I do sometimes, I asked him to meet and then, we had lunch. He is a +30 years experience professional that has changed his career 3 times. He is not quite ready to retire but to face a new adventure, a challenge that allows him to feel the thrill again of re-inventing himself while being at his best. A dedicated community volunteer with a big network and an incredible track record of achievements.

There are some elements these fellows have in common:
- A clear VISION. Knowing where you want to go makes a definitive statement on the direction or re-direction you take on your career. It is about that ultimate place you’d like to see yourself in the future. There is a popular expression: ‘All roads lead to Rome’. If you know you want to get there, then what are you waiting for?
- A strong Network and a distinctive Brand. These folks have created and extended a network that relies on the quality and distinctive elements of their Brands. They are trusted resources for those who know them.
- Community advocates. Both of them have volunteered successfully in organizations and generated visibility in not just their technical abilities but their willingness to take that extra step to support a cause when is needed.
- Sense of FUN. One of them is quite an athlete and the other is an explorer. Both enjoy life, have a strong family/friends support system and look forward to what may comes next knowing they have the power to grab that wheel and control the result.
- Work/Life Balance. They have personal goals. Not everything is 100% job related when you talk to them. They actually have a fulfilling life that determines their Brands and not a Brand that depends on a particular job to be successful. It may be one of the reasons they can so easily move from job to job when needed.
These are ‘Miracle Makers’. They do not wait for the opportunity to knock on their doors but move their actions aligned to their values in the direction their future vision to be is placed.

A Brand with a heart is more authentic than anything else you may see on paper. They walk the talk, their actions fulfill their words and they create/make/grow their own world.

But remember, their successes did not happen overnight because ‘even miracles take a little bit of time’.

Best Success!

Your Coach,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
‘Because You Can Change What Happens Next’
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
http://www.career4change.com/
Visit me at my Career4Change Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/2fg627g

Have you been tagged into a job or occupation you hate and ready to take control on a Career4Change?

2010-04-26T20:12:00.001-05:00

Wilbert Rideau reinvented himself as a winning award editor for a high security prison when sentenced to death and later on to life term in prison. What can be a most radical re-definition on what you decide you want to do for the rest of your life but this? He was the editor of an award winning prison newspaper and he lived beyond the horror of the stories he covered to be released and write an autobiography. What a paradox to find the job of your dreams when you are incarcerated. (NPR's story: http://tinyurl.com/29ncgq8)
I’d like to ask you the following question: how many times have you been cornered by your own circumstances to react by changing jobs or leaving behind a very unfulfilling career? How many is ‘too many’ jobs in a lifetime?

A BLS news release published in June 2008 examined that the average number of jobs that younger baby boomers held from age 18 to age 42 was 10.8. (www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf). However, this study does not tell anything beyond this sample which does not include those that immigrated to the US after the survey began in 1979.

Let’s assume this applies to all and we can expect an average of 10.8 jobs in our lifetimes. Do you know how to find your next job while you still have one? Have you mastered your Professional Brand’s marketing strategy and tapped into the best resources to sell it?

Now, what about changing careers? The Department of Labor does not offer statistical data on this matter. What we know for sure is that most working people will make numerous career changes during their lifetime of employment. However, Studies show that people are making 3 to 5 major career changes - not just job changes - in their lifetime. And the newest predictions are that people will make at least 5 to 7 major career changes in the near future, if not more.

But how do you do this in the current environment?

1. What’s your motivation? Is it a matter of changing jobs, finding your dream job or just getting any job? Whatever it is please make up your mind and be very CLEAR on it. It is not unusual to find people at networking events that tell you upfront they’d be willing to do any job which is not something that will make them attractive for a potential hiring manager right now. Even if you were desperate enough to get anything, you’ll have to be smarter than that to play by your Brand and sell it at your best for that ‘whatever’ job you’d be looking to get.

2. What are your transferable skills? You may title your resume with a very specific job title missing the relevant competencies related on the content of it. Read the related market job descriptions and analyze what competencies you have applied consistently throughout your career that can be effectively transferred.

3. What’s your strategy? Have you consciously studied your market and its trends? Are you an Oil and Gas Onshore professional trying to find a job dominated by Oil and Gas Offshore openings? Have you identified key sources of information to tap into the market to move you ahead of the competition? Are you making the calls, making best use of your existent network while extending it successfully by a very well defined distinctive Professional Brand? What conferences are you volunteering for? What professional networks have you identified and are consistently participating at? Are those Networks the most indicated to lead you closer to your career vision? Why? What else is out there? Have you talked to those successful in achieving your goal?

4. Rehearse, role-play and get the job. How does the job you are looking for look like at a given day? Are you aware of its challenges, requirements and priorities? How close are you to be able to demonstrate yourself at a similar job? Can you volunteer your time in a non-profit organization that allows you a ‘break’ to probe what you can do in it? Do you manage the technical terms? Are you working towards that certification or software that will make the difference between you and someone else?

5. Networking and Unique positioning statement. Most people are unaware of how important is to be able to effectively articulate a good entrance that sells your Brand at a networking event. Even worse, many candidates fail to answer the very basic, yet challenging question: WHY YOU? Or why should I hire YOU? What’s your take on it? Are you ready to handle your unique positioning statement in less than a minute? What about 30 seconds?

If you are effectively considering either for personal reasons or job market trends to change your occupation, you will have to be open and flexible about your negotiation terms and conditions – contract type, relocation and salary. Be positive but set realistic goals with setbacks and difficult challenges. Make sure you look at the bigger picture and consider all your options including a potential lateral move or starting your own business or consulting practice as alternatives.
Remember, “Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.” Margaret Young

Your Coach,

Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
‘Because You Can Change What Happens Next’
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
http://www.career4change.com/
Visit me at my Career4Change Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/2fg627g

Could you repeat Mr. Cinderella’s story in your career exploration process?

2010-04-19T14:02:00.003-05:00

Scarcity-thinking generates an attitude that prompts you to seek to acquire more for yourself no matter how much you have and to treat others as competitors no matter how little they have. It goes totally against the Abundance thinking that generates a universe of possibility.

A great example aligned to the power of inquiry is Paul Harding, an indie writer who won the Pulitzer price for fiction last week for the novel “Tinkers”. As per an interview the New York Times published today ‘his manuscript languished in a desk drawer for nearly three years”, but in what the NY Times called a dramatic literacy Cinderella story he not only found a publisher but won the Pulitzer. His work was rejected by all major publishers while getting feedback that he had to add action to a story that was too quiet while moving throughout the minds of the characters. He believed in the story and did not change a bit of it. The words his teachers shared while at school kept strong on him by fulfilling his own definition of good.

Are you fulfilling your own definition of good? Have you got clarity in your own distinctive professional brand?

It disturbs me to see the façade many people play when networking and marketing their Brands. It is so obvious for the viewer to see when the script is real and when it is just a charade. Have you watched a performance when the actor is completely wrong for the part? Branding in order to be effective has to be authentic, real, and extraordinary.

You could be Mr. Cinderella (or Mrs. Cinderella!) if you also played by your own Professional Branding definition of good.

It is not about what others can take from you.

It is not about what others can give to you.

It is not about what they do have that you don’t.

It is about making an authentic and meaningful contribution to what you do.

Your career progression is not an obstacle course. There are landmarks to achieve. Be PRESENT and grow with them, incorporate the experiences consciously to your thinking and create possibilities. Once you are willing to ‘get over it’, then you can move on to what’s out there waiting to be achieved.
Write your own story with your own words!
“There is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable not how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open".
- Martha Graham, quoted by Agnes De Mille,
Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham.

Visit me also at my Career4Change Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/y2pep8k.

Best Success!
Your Professional Branding and Career Coach because…you can change what happens next!
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Are you flying blind in your job hunting journey?

2010-04-18T14:27:00.007-05:00

How do you empower yourself to learn new things at work or while you are job transitioning? How do you progress your career to the next level? Love for learning or love for money?.

What if you did not know how to achieve success? Could it be lack of talent or lack of effort? What if it’s just that you are merely flying blind?
It is like if I offered you a million dollars nuclear energy job right now but as you had no experience on it, you would not be able to take it; therefore, no job, no million dollars in sight.
But, what if I still paid you for something you did not know how to do? Would you be able ‘to do the math’ and learn a new skill or transfer your acquired competencies to the new situation successfully, would you be able to do so?
I have job transitioning clients that when coming to me had been doing everything they believed was right to land them the next job, the truth? Most were literally flying blind!

Competition is harder and recruiters are being stricter in the specific competencies they’d like to have in a successful job candidate, but how can you ensure you know what you are doing when everyone tells you contradictory stories? how can you transfer what you know and what's best out there to apply it successfully to your own process?

1. Identify qualified sources of information. Friends are good supporters but not subject experts. Go to career related sites and take the time to read what they’ve got to say about your job transition process. Talk to the qualified experts. Schedule a talk with someone that went through the same process and got a job. Hire a Career Coach and/or ask tons of questions to the ones that have the accurate and down-to-earth answers that would make a difference!

2. Get a Free Resume Critique. Do you know that MOST coaches offer you a free of cost resume critique with no obligation on your side? You can e-mail me your resume at career4change@yahoo.com and I’d do the same. It is a great way to get an experts’ assessments on what you could do to be more effective. I read scary statistics on the horrifying resumes that do not pass the recruiter’s screening process due to very basic mistakes such as poor formatting, lack of relevant job related content and spelling mistakes. Is your resume one of those?

3. Your Brand is not your friend’s Brand. Recruiters see literally zillions of resumes in a given week. That is why they are paid for. Their ability to screen, to blink and know who’s the one for which job and have that perfect candidate that just nailed it at an interview is vital for a successful job hunting process. What’s your unique positioning statement? Do you have a unique answer that tells them: Why You?. What have you got that make you the absolute BEST person for the job? Are you distinguishing yourself? Are you being referred to that key hiring manager/recruiter for that perfect job? Are you ready to sell your brand and close the deal or are you still struggling to articulate your key messages? Career4Change can help you go through that process, so then you are the S-T-A-R that shines above your competition.

4. Networking yourself to the top. There is a quote I absolutely identify this process with shared by Jeremiah Owyang at Web-Strategist.com:“Those who ignore the party/conversation/network when they are content and decide to drop in when they need the network may not succeed. It’s pretty easy to spot those that are just joining the network purely to take – not to give. Therefore, be part of the party/conversation/network before you need anything from anyone.” Well, do I have to say more? This is a red flag for those who got the job and think networking will have a long break in their career lives until the next roller coaster shake things up or for those that prefer handle their search in job boards. Statistically speaking, networking increases chances of success +60 to 80%!

5. Be courteous and Pay forward. I can’t emphasize enough the power of kindness on this process. Give and take is a reciprocal game. It is kind to use thank you letters but not good enough. Offer to make connections to those that help you along the way and go for it. Send that e-mail to those two contacts that do not know each other but who could potentially get some benefit if they did. Make referrals to the ones that have exceeded the task given even if they have not asked for it.

6. Be Visible, be there, be found. Use social media. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter among others are fantastic resources to keep track on the trends moving the job market. Participate actively in groups’ discussions. Get referrals posted on your profile. Dare to sell your Professional Brand at your BEST.

Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu at Career4Change counts with +15 public referrals that support a track record and service you could count on if you just e-mail us at career4change@yahoo.com.

Find out what I can do for YOU in a very personal, customized and approachable way.
Visit me also at my Career4Change Facebook Page: http://tinyurl.com/y2pep8k.
Best Success!

Your Professional Branding and Career Coach because…you can change what happens next!
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

What’s the Recruiter’s Job?

2010-03-16T09:14:00.002-05:00

Last week I was asked by a client what was the difference between recruiters and head hunters and if there was a way that she could get a recruiter to help her finding a job. Well, it is not very often I get this question but she has not been the only one to ask this.

There are corporate recruiters and third party recruiters. The first ones are those hired by the hiring organization to do recruiting for them in full time basis while third party recruiters are subcontracted by a company for the purpose of finding and qualifying potential new employees for the organization. You can have retained recruiters who are paid a portion of their fee upfront with the balance paid when the search is over and contingency recruiters who are paid a fee only if the company hires a candidate discovered through them.

A recruiter does not get back to you after you have applied to that perfect matching job for several reasons but fundamentally because a day happens to have just 8 working hours and there are many vacancies to fill in busy times.

But what do a recruiter’s do for a position (not for you!)?

First, sit with his corporate clients to close the deal on job requirements, budget and timing constraints in filling the position.

Second, he searches for referrals and/or his data base. This is where you want to be. If you have already created and extended a successful network the chances are you get to put yourself in a favorable spot for consideration.

Third, he navigates the Internet. That means he spends time on the web posting his clients’ vacancies at different job sites while checking on the applicants he has already got for the positions he placed out there earlier. Social media is clearly becoming a resource for recruiters to use. Make sure you are visible and have a strong not-to-be-missed profile in a site such as LinkedIn.

Fourth, he’s got to go through a huge pile of pre-qualified applications, resumes forwarded by other recruiters interested in making a split placement while arranging interviews/screening phone calls with those that make the cut. Here’s the thing: Recruiters know that a resume rarely gets you inside a company unless they include a summary of your value that targets the hiring manager's needs. In other words, most resumes leaves it up to employers to figure out how you can add value to their organization and that gets you obviously nowhere closer to your goal. Come ready to bring ideas to the table and clear examples on how you have successfully overcome similar challenges. Research the organization, its culture and if possible, talk to someone already employed there to get some insider’s information.

Fifth, set up interview between the hiring manager and the already screened applicants. On this one, it is literally a blessing to have the luxury of administrative assistants to ‘some times’ do this piece for you. On this piece it is important to notice that a real top notch recruiter will never set you up for an interview unless you are clearly qualified for the job. Most candidates practice an interview forgetting to do what they are going to be measured on: ‘Practice doing the Job’. If your focus is only on what you’ve done and you leave to luck the connectivity between your potential and future added value to the hiring manager then, you’ll be lost in the system.

Sixth, follow up with corporate client and candidate after the interview is over. Consider that there will be likely a minimum of two rounds of interviews, if not three or four, based on the position seniority and other parameters. It is key on this part that candidates remember their business manners. That is what ‘thank you’ notes are for!

Seventh, making reports. Key performance indicators are essential to keep track on the efficiencies and bottle necks related to vacancies to fill and a resource to offer to a potential client when reports probe a high level of satisfaction or a valuable trend to the market.

In conclusion, be clear that a recruiter does not work for you but for the hiring company. It is the company that pays their fees and the one they have to please in order to be paid for their hard work.

Have you eaten your career transition’s frog, yet?

2010-03-03T16:12:00.001-06:00

I just watched a short video inspired on the Eat that Frog’s book by Brian Tracy and I couldn’t help relating it to all the frogs most people keep everywhere that drain their energy and stop them to release their full potential and achieve their goal.

The idea behind the book is that by procrastinating what you would prefer not to do your energy switches in a way that prevents you to get the important things done.

These are the most common frogs I’ve seen in my clients that stop them to be at their best and release their full potential to the job market:

1. Networking. Isn’t it true that some of you get extremely uneasy about the whole networking setting? You know there are huge benefits in sharing best practice and extending your network but you still leave it as a last priority finding always a very reasonable excuse not to do it. You even complain your career transition would be over if you only knew those key contacts in the companies you know you are perfect for. The truth? It does not happen overnight, it does not happen if you hide under the blankets of your busy agenda, it does not happen when you stay behind your computer. Now, eat that frog first and select that affinity group you feel most likely aligned to your vision and go for it.

2. Asking for help. I have talked so many times to other entrepreneurs, professionals and executives about this concept. We all get approached by people wanting to meet us but once they are gone, most of the times they have failed to actually ask for what they needed from us to move on. There is a silent expectation that help will be given even if it is not asked for. Well, most of the times that is not the case. So, put that vision together and identify the people that could help contributing to your action plan implementation. The sources of expertise will be very likely flattered by a well structured and professional request. Now, eat that frog!

3. Social Media's active use. I get hired by clients to go through the social media concept, advantages and potential uses in the job search process. Most of them decide to do so after procrastinating it for a long time. They are afraid they will not be good at it and that it will be very difficult for them to get up to speed with what Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter –among others – have to offer to speed up their career transition journey. Eat that frog and go on to start enjoying the benefits social media can offer to get you closer to your vision.

4. A well aligned professional brand. Almost everything can look good on paper, but how to ensure you are selling your unique brand in a resume and not just a format copied from a cheap website? I was having lunch today with a couple of amazing recruiters who mentioned how they get turned off by resumes that contain fancy words not connected to the applicant’s track record. They also stop looking at resumes that provide looong wording sentences with no real meaning, connection or added value to the former employer’s business. Most recruiters who use social media have also found horrifying stories or pictures of those potential candidates for a job not aligned at all with the information given on the application form. Prepare and eat that frog to do your homework in order to sell consistently your Brand at your best with all what it takes!

5. Lack of a clear vision. Any job is not a job. When I get approached on networking events by job seekers with no specific goal I know their chances of succeeding are very low as they are not taking themselves seriously enough to put together a vision to drive them forward. Not having a vision will turn off most of your contacts that will very unlikely refer someone who does not even have a career goal, not enough confidence in selling connected competencies and highlights to the job market; therefore, no exceptional substance to work with. Eat that frog!

6. Grateful and mindful. How many have you forgotten to thank that contact who gave you that key tip for the job you were looking for? It is never too late to be thankful. What goes around comes around. I got recently a very rare thank you note from someone who I met while job transitioning and that after finding his job was thankful enough to e-mail all the people that helped him to be successful on it. That does not happen as often as it should. Eat that frog and show gratitude to your network and give back!

Best Success in your new diet and for those looking for the video here’s the link that I have also placed on my Facebook Career4Change page that you are welcome to visit anytime for a bilingual career coaching experience.

Video’s Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W7GB5Fh2XM

Career 4 Change Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Katy-Texas/Career4Change/353305821256?ref=ts

"Procrastination is opportunity's natural assassin." ~Victor Kiam

Are you committed to your job fulfillment? Are you making a difference?

2010-03-01T21:45:00.000-06:00

Have you read the news on Jaime Escalante’s cancer? This is the teacher that inspired the ‘Stand and Deliver’s’ movie. His strong belief on his students’ potential as well as his undefeatable commitment towards his vision generated such a difference in the school in which he taught calculus that the passing rate went from zero to a noticeable higher than Beverly Hill High.

He made the conscious choice of not just doing a job but taking actions to fulfill his vision. His students and the community he belonged to connected to him once he led by example. He did not wait for the school system to change but he generated the change.

What about you? What changes are you 'waiting for'? There are so many reasons not to be happy at work. It may be you are not connected to your company, managers and co-workers but most importantly, are you connected to your own vision and what it takes to get there?

I have a client who jumped from one job after another feeling unfulfilled and unsatisfied at every company she worked for. Once we explored into her inexistent Vision she actually discovered her need for one and we worked together in putting an inspiring vision to guide her through her career development. She re-gained a sense of her ‘wants’ beyond her ‘needs’ and after this realization she was able to stay long enough in a job to grow and get closer to her destination. Was she into her ideal job? Was her manager the best one in class? I don’t think so. But once she had clarity on what she wanted and needed to go through in order to get there, then her whole career took a whole different meaning. It was her choice to grab that career driving wheel.

It was Jaime Escalante’s choice to go beyond the Latino stereotyping proving himself beyond any self-given boundaries and breaking any limitation given to a Bolivian immigrant in the USA.

He now needs our help to help paying for his treatment. He is an icon to the Latino that have come to this country to make a better living adding value to society and generating a significant change in that journey.

Please, click on the link below for further details on how to help and while you do that, then start thinking about how you can generate a change.

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-jaime-escalante-cancer,0,3839418.story

'Do what you can, with what you have, where you are' - Theodore Rooselvelt

Coach sends Kramer on embarrassing wrong turn...what’s your wrong career turn?

2010-02-25T11:09:00.001-06:00

Can you believe what happened to this guy? A speed machine that with no doubt was the best on his field and deserved gold, but as the end of the race approached he got the wrong signal from his coach to do what got him disqualified! It was a very expensive mistake that cost him not just a gold medal but some important financial losses. What if he had kept doing what he was doing already at his best?
Have you taken a wrong turn when you’ve almost got it? Though, I am a very open minded individual I coach myself – and clients – not to be blindly folded by others’ opinions and connect to one's inner voice to know when to follow your instincts and not somebody else’s. So, where to draw the line between what others tell you and your own instinct?

There are so many different stories related to what people wonder only if they had made a different career choice. Speed is key for the ambitious kind of people and making it to the top at a certain point for them is all what matters to win. For others it is about wondering what if they had not rejected a job offer that opened a wonderful career opportunity for the one that took it. But many are still wondering what they would have done if life had given them apples instead of lemons.

How many of you live in the ‘if’ of a moment?

What matters to me is the clarity of a vision that allows you to take some calculated chances with the unknown. Entrepreneurs have a business plan while individuals have their own career/life plans. Do you have one?

Do you know where you are going; therefore, are you ready to take risks and decisions that may get you closer to that destination?

Are you willing to invest your life, your time, your money more wisely, so then you can afford to live the triumph and growing experience that comes out of your decisions?

Because it is better to live up to your standards and your dreams than keeping your life wondering whether you could have done it differently if ….

Most of my clients when talking to me wonder what if they had come to me a year before, what if they had listened to really qualified people on their field instead of their well intentioned friends, what if they had began doing networking at the beginning of their career transition instead of relying mostly on the web, what if they had taken the time to understand the ‘host Country’ business culture in order to adjust their brand effectively, what if…

What if you stop wondering now and take the courage to assume the consequences of your decisions and control your life and career from now on.

What if you decide you do not have all the answers and start looking for mentors and/or coaches to facilitate your success in that journey?

What if when you go to your network you have a level of clarity in your own brand that allows yourself to sell it effectively?

What if you have a job search strategy that combines multiple resources aligned to a vision linked to a unique brand?

What if you take the time not just to ask, ask, ask to your network but decide to actually share best practice with them and give back?

‘People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.
I don't believe in circumstances.
The people who get on in this world
are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want.
And if they can’t, make them.’
- George Bernard Shaw

Google me, Google you...Ah, ha!

2010-02-23T08:37:00.000-06:00

One of the first things I do when getting a potential client is to Google his/her name to see what comes out of it. It is not as boring as you could expect. It’s been an amazing, surprising, shocking and even fun – at times – process.

Recruiters are using social media to look for passive candidates and to even screen a bit beyond what’s on paper to what actually those potential candidates may be like.

Do you have any control on your online professional brand?

A lot of people tend to think that celebrities are the ones in TV, but not anymore. Internet and social media have knocked our walls down to expose a lot of our private matters to the public scrutiny – if not careful -.

The first time I actually ‘googled’ myself I remember finding only my Bachelor’s degree thesis. I just could not believe there was nothing a bit more exciting than that. A few years later and I am in control.

So, what’s out there for you… or not? How does that personal piece may expose your profile? Hopefully, you are doing Ok so far, so good but you can take some precautions and there are some hints I’d like to share with you:

1. Google yourself. Play a bit with your name on the web at www.googlism.com and/or www.pipl.com.

2. Analyze your results and try to measure relevance on them. Is there too much information out there, well, then that means is time to start restricting the privacy setting on your social pages (e.g. Facebook) as well as the access your contacts have of your pictures and personal information. Do you have nothing? Think if that is what you want and then,

3. Market yourself at your best. Create a professional profile out there to sell your brand effectively. How about LinkedIn or Nayms? What have you got in Flickr? Believe me when I tell you that there are things out there that some wouldn’t want the world to see so freely. But, having said this, there are things you do want the world to know.

4. Control your Brand. Google results are no accident as many may think. You can actually create and set your distinctiveness straight in the web. You can even rate your presence and ‘play’ with it.

5. Do not obsess with it. I’ve heard there are people out there even paying for their names not to ever show up in any website listing results.

6. Google your potential hiring manager and interviewer. What comes around goes around. Find their professional profiles and affiliations. Wouldn’t it be great to find you share a strong affinity that is not listed in your resume before that interview?
Do not underestimate the power of Social Media and its potential to get you closer to your Vision.

“How can you squander even one more day not taking advantage of the greatest shifts of our generation? How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable?”

– Seth Godin, Seth’s Blog (http://sethgodin.typepad.com)

How are you supposed to prepare for a telephone screening?

2010-02-22T11:52:00.000-06:00

Yes, today is a bright and shiny day in your job transitioning journey. You’ve got an e-mail to schedule a telephone screening/exploratory talk to the hiring manager/recruiter of that company you really want to work for. You wish it was a face-to-face talk, don’t you? You’ll probably have no way to get reactions over the phone as there is not a face to read in front of you. You may be nervous that your accent may come too strong for the interviewer. But, you want to be prepared.

Here are some tips that could facilitate your success on this matter:

1. Show energy and enthusiasm through your voice. As the interviewer will not see you, your voice will be your main resource to sell your brand. Having said this, remember to be careful not to over do it and mindful on your volume and environment under which you’ll have this talk. If you are a visual person, have your resume and charts with your highlighted achievements in front of you. Sometimes the only info you’ll be asked for is the one already reflected in your resume which makes easy to handle the conversation, but some other times the recruiter may want to inquire on a particular set of competencies required for the job and you must be ready to perform at your best during the telephone screening process by providing clear examples that demonstrate you are effectively the person for the job.

2. Minimize/avoid interruptions before they happen, so then it is easy to hear you. Get that beautiful dog somewhere else, so its barking is not annoying for your interlocutor during the conversation.

3. Keep yourself 100% in the moment! It is important to ensure it is a good time for you to talk to that interviewer. If the call comes without any notice, feel free to provide a very business related excuse to re-schedule it at a better time and ask for a phone number or e-mail to call back. You do not want that beautiful child to make baby noises in the middle of a job screening talk and you do not want to be distracted by the fact that the most undesired interruption may ruin your moment at anytime.

4. Use clear diction. It is more obvious over the telephone and can affect the interviewer's perception of your professional/executive image. If English is your second language, please do not rush in responding. Speak at a slower speed, so then the right words come to your mind and get to make it effectively to your mouth. It also gives you a little bit of a break to gain confidence in your message and articulate your response effectively.

5. Request contact information. If you don't have the interviewer's contact information, be sure to request their email address, so that you can send them a thank you e-mail.

Prepare, prepare, and prepare to sell your Brand! Remember as well to ask for a job description in advance of that telephone screening in order to ensure you understand the job requirements and how they relate to your background and competencies

There are some common questions you can expect to get and role playing with a career coach is a wonderful way to get ready to be at your best.

Best Success!

"You must know that in any moment a decision you make can change the course of your life forever: the very next person stand behind in line or sit next to on an airplane, the very next phone call you make or receive, the very next movie you see or book you read or page you turn could be the one single thing that causes the floodgates to open, and all of the things that you've been waiting for to fall into place.” - Anthony Robbins

Mom, do you have to go to work?

2010-02-19T14:32:00.007-06:00

Lately, I’ve been getting more job transitioning Moms looking to get back to work. There are the ones whose super domestic engineering duties are almost gone; therefore, they’re looking forward to transfer their skills into an office environment. On the other hand, there are the Moms whose financial household situation is requiring them to do what they know how to do best: multiple tasking between a job and the duties of raising a family.

I am a true fan of Moms and their working potential as they probe constantly their amazing commitment to do the job that needs to be done while organizing multiple priorities into a scheduled scheme of tasks that generate tangible results.

I think our society has evolved and it’s getting a deeper understanding on the transferable skills Moms have to offer to this job market; however, the market is tougher for everyone these days as there are less jobs for more qualified people. This element has an impact in the emotional side of many transitioning professionals and Moms returning to work are not the exception. I have listened to their worries about their adequate offer to the market (e.g. do I have what it takes?) or not having enough skills to sell (e.g. I may not be that qualified after all). At the end, professional branding’s clarity with a vision is the key to nail it.

40 percent of American women are now the primary earners in a household and this number keeps growing, though, we all know there are obvious salary disparities in what women make vs. men doing the same job.

The chances are most Moms out there are actually adding further value in their activities beyond the Mom duties by doing fund raising and volunteering at a local non-profit group or PTA. Knowing what to do with it and how to capitalize your resume is essential.

Highlight the competencies that you have demonstrated on these volunteering activities with no embarrassment or apologetic sense such as:

Developed a donor prospect list of individuals and groups with the capacity and propensity to give for further research while rating prospects in categories of giving potential in order to plan solicitations (Did you organize all the previous donors and worked on that master list for this year’s event? Well, here you go!)
+25% contributions’ increase in less than a year by leading a fund raising drive for a +800 community members (It may be you actually organized a successful school fund drive)
Designed and conducted training programs for +50 young volunteers using various training methodologies in order to increase fund raising events’ success (you have led and facilitated a meeting with all volunteers to go through expectations, roles and accountabilities, as well as deliverables and safety procedures to be kept during the event…isn’t this training?)

The point is to focus in what you have and not what you may think you are missing because the chances are that if you own your Brand, then you’ll be able to land an offer by networking yourself effectively among your contacts.

It is not a matter of luck but a matter of self-confidence, branding, networking and vision to succeed.

“The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.”- W.R. Wallace

Your coach,

Mariela

What a lovely accent, where are you from?

2010-02-17T23:14:00.002-06:00

If you are like most, you may be flattered by the compliment and replied back with no second though on your country of origin, but….Oh, well…
Interviewers are not those mean people looking to get you at your worst as some may think. These are folks that are looking to fill job requirements in order to deliver what is asked from them, so they can meet their client's performance expectations. They need the BEST individual they can find to do the job, don’t they? But who are those so-called ‘top quartile’ candidates? Are the best candidates those that meet the job requirements or the ones that resemble the interviewers’ personal traits?

The challenge for the recruiter is to instill in hiring managers an objective sense to select that PERFECT candidate for a job; however, some may fall into illegal questioning to get the answer they need for the job requirement they have.

But what do you do when you are faced with a situation like that? Do you attack the interviewer for illegal questioning or do you play a smart act?

Let’s say you are asked: Where are you from? The right line of thought is that they should not care about your nationality but your ability to work for any employer in the US. You could volunteer or not your Country of origin (though, you shouldn’t feel forced to it) but the best response would be the one satisfying the job requirement which is your legal status to work in the United States.

One of my favorites is hearing how some may actually intend to compliment the family they are guessing you have, so then you fall for it and volunteer details on your kids, etc. Don’t! Even if the interviewer does not have a purposeful intention to discriminate against you wanting to be friendly, the chances are that once the screening is done and the decision is between you and Joe Doe, well, your personal cards may play well against you.

Be mindful when you go to an interview. You are going to sell your Professional Brand at your best. Your objective is to demonstrate your competencies by providing clear examples of your added value, so then you can be considered as the candidate for the job. You are not there to make a new friend but to position yourself at the top of the pile.

Don’t be someone you are not and do not fall into a ‘pleasing attitude’ under the belief you will impress the potential employer and get the job.

It is not just how legal the interviewer may be but how honest you are being to yourself and the potential hiring organization in wanting to give your best to them in order to add value and move your career forward.

It is great to be prepared and understand the legalities of the interviewing process in the US but it is even greater to assume your own set of values and expectations in order to match them with the best possible ‘qualified’ potential employers out there.

A good recruiter knows the difference between the authentic candidate and the one that ‘fakes the act’ to get the job. But an experienced job seeker knows how to distinguish ethical job probing questions Vs. the illegal ones.

Call it a ‘blink’ instinct or the voice of the experience.

So, go on and prepare for that interview with the best you’ve got to offer and the level of awareness to handle those illegal set of questions you may – or not –face, but be authentic in your promise of value.

'The most important words that have helped me in life-when things have gone right, or when things have gone wrong-are Accept Responsibility. . . Dream, act and lead. ' - Billie Jean King

Let's Play Tag!

2010-02-16T11:53:00.002-06:00

I am a Latino, a female, a minority and an alien…aren’t those tags so much fun to live by? Well, only if you want to.

When I moved to the US I was only me, Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu, but then it hit me that I may have become someone else once I started getting some Diversity and Inclusion training related to the whole legal and cultural aspects as per the differences and commonalities we all share (or not). Woao! I was shocked! I also started getting questions related to my professional knowledge as whether I knew things that were pretty common HR knowledge unrelated to my nationality. I could write a separate entry on my blog including all the ‘silly’ questions, comments and huge tagging I felt myself trapped by when I was living under my first year induction in a country characterized by its diversity.

More than 9 years experiencing the presuming new me and I’ve found quite a level of comfort in the attributes I’ve chosen to give to each of my tags. Here I go:

Latino: Undetermined race not given by color or language. Alive and diverse all Latinos come from an extensive region with a variety of countries that sometimes share a lot of cultural values and some other times have not even the language in common. Winter and summer can be experienced or not. Poverty or richness. Happiness or sadness. Everything in Latin America is a matter of choice (not that different from anywhere else, don’t you think?).

Female: A wonderful genetic combination that happens to some amazing people called women. It comprises a variety and out-of-the-box category that it is impossible to tag into any other self-described attribute but the one given in the biology class.

Minority: A group that is not numerically bigger than another one. A growing number of people with the power to make sustainable changes in our society.

Alien: It is work in progress. A person from ‘somewhere else’ not to be taken with fear. An explorer looking for a better life, seeking a dream and contributing to the fun diversity of our society with its own differences. A real barrier breaker. Innovative, brave and determined to make it.

What tags have you identified for yourself? Introverted or Extroverted? Emotional or Analytical? Do they trap your potential or move you forward to success? Do you consider yourself pre-determined and self-contained by a set of categories defined by someone else or have you chosen to live your life by your own chosen standards?

I couldn’t resist the urge to re-invent the definitions given to tags as life probes constantly that nothing is like it seems and how my grandmother would say: ‘the world is upside down’. It opens all sorts of possibilities to explore the life you have always wanted to live if you give it a try. Make your own definitions and get-out-of-the box!

Your life, your tag definition and your ultimate choice! Let's play!

Your Coach,
Mariela

P.S. For those looking for the legal information on how to deal with interviewing illegal questions, wait for a future entry on that matter coming soon!

Is your resume 'too oversized' to fit anywhere?

2010-02-15T21:14:00.002-06:00

Have you heard the news on Kevin Smith ‘ejected’ from a Southwest Airlines' airplane due to his size? It is everywhere. CNN, Yahoo News, BBC and almost everyone else is talking about it. He planned his trip by booking two seats on the airplane but there was only one available and when he took it, he sat properly getting his seat belt on as required, but still the flight attendants did not consider it met the airline regulations to sit on it, reason why he was ‘ejected’.

What if they were talking about your resume? Is it oversized? Is it being rejected by the corporate job boards’ screening systems? There are two perspectives I can think of when figuring an ‘oversized’ resume.

1. TMI: How much detail are you putting into it? I wonder if you would invite someone on a second date if getting TOO MUCH INFORMATION on the first one. Same thing happens to resumes. Yes, there is such a thing as TMI on them. A recruiter does not need to know every single thing you’ve done but what relates to the job opening. Even better, what about using your resume to actually advertise the best that your professional brand has to offer? When we are watching TV commercials we just get a snapshot of a product based on what the advertiser has defined the interest of the audience may be. Be Creative. Do not copy and paste your friend’s resume. Do you want to be an ‘ACME’ Resume or the real deal?
2. Length: How many pages are we talking about? I’ve got clients that come to me worrying that the ‘resume’ seems to be 5 pages too long. What do you think?

A recruiter does not give generally more than 5-10 seconds attention spam by resume once it gets to her hands. What can you placed at the beginning of that resume to catch the recruiter’s attention even more than that?

1. A clear objective, summary and career highlights would do you a favor. Do not tell me what anyone else does but what your brand is all about. What makes you different from the competition? What makes you not just right for the job but the best there is out there to be found?
2. Please make it relevant. I do not want to know all the tasks performed on each job but the outcomes, added value you provided due to your performance to the organizations you’ve worked for.
3. Keep it simple. Be mindful to what the market is looking for and what you’ve got to sell to it. Get that reality check. It may be you need an upgrade. I had a client whose profile was fantastic but after I performed a job market analysis on her case, we realized she was missing key software knowledge to get that ‘dream job’. She was disciplined enough to get certified. She highlighted that element properly on her newer resume version. No much later, she landed the kind of job she was truly looking for.

You can actually be strategic about your resume once it is aligned to your Brand values and distinctive elements. If you nail what’s best in yourself, by working not just on a snapshot you can reflect on that piece of paper, but in the unique positioning statement you’ll sell to your network, then the chances are you won’t be oversized but perfect to a market that is just waiting for you to grab the opportunity.

“You've got to be success minded. You've got to feel that things are coming your way when you're out selling; otherwise, you won't be able to sell anything.”
Benjamin Jowett (British Scholar)

Are you hiking straight to the top or just hanging in there? (A very personal story)

2010-02-12T08:59:00.009-06:00

Some years ago I was invited to go to a hiking trip to Mount Kenya in Africa. I could not refuse an invitation like that while I kept thinking how anyone like me could make it to the top. I had 7 months to prepare and get in shape for the big trip. Then, September 11 happened and the world as we knew it collapsed as fear grew big time among travelers. Still, we took a leap of faith and decided to go telling just a couple of close relatives and not even our parents.

Any professional hiker – which I can assure you I am not! – can tell you how important it is that you pack the right stuff. Not too much, not junk, dehydrated foods that you can cook easily on a camping stove, healthy energizing snacks, proper clothes and the best shoes you can find not to kill your feet.

So then, we went for adventure ready to take anything with our hearts and cameras. I felt ready but still had serious doubts I could get to the top. I trained at my best with a personal trainer, lifted weights twice a week, ran 5-6 miles a day, used the treadmill, ate healthy and had the best legs I’ve ever had. Ready or not, there I went!

Once we got to the entrance of Mount Kenya National Park I realized how scared I was. It truly looked like Jurassic Park and it was raining so badly that we had to stay with our backpacks sitting under the little guard house at the Entrance Gates waiting for the rain to clear a little in order to set our very basic camp. No luxuries allowed as we had a tight budget.

While sitting there pretending relaxation and excitement I just felt the urge to go back home, I thought of all the failure stories, the tourists killed by buffalos, snakes and all the horrifying images that Discovery Channel had had the brilliance to share with its audience. Still, I smiled and tried to picture the unique feeling of getting to the top of a high mountain.

Before I knew it, it was the day after and we began our hiking deciding not to wait for our guide as the path seemed very clear and easy to follow. It was truly a magnificent Rainy Forrest, a path surrounded by the biggest trees I’d seen in my life with the animal sounds you can only imagine in a well made documentary.

We walked for a couple of hours until my worse nightmare crossed in front of us: Buffalos!!!! I stopped paralyzed with fear remembering that they supposedly do not attack you unless they are alone. My husband did what every macho man would have done which was trying to scare them away with some well calculated screams, but before he did, he warned me to run fast and try to climb a tree if buffalos decided to attack us. The buffalos did not seem to respond well as they got ready to attack, and before I knew it, I was running fast and furious to the closest tree I could find even before my husband gave me the sign. He offered to climb the tree first, so he could help me out once in the closest branch but I quickly rejected asking him to back off for me to go first. The truth? I fell like a sack of potatoes and I cried for the ending of my life. However, once I turned my head I did not see the buffalos anywhere around as they had indeed decided we were not that scary anyway and disappear into the rainy forrest. Lesson learned: We waited for our experienced guide.

Once we all met, we reinitiated our hiking with hopes we wouldn’t be featured in the discovery channel or a Hollywood movie. We made it to second camp and decided to use the basic collective cabins instead of our tents being warned not to leave the door open under the risk of getting our food stolen by monkeys.

On our second day, we were welcomed by a much harder trail as it actually disappeared in the middle of the mud and the water flowing downhill under the stormy rain. Three hours into it and my legs felt like broken into pieces, my arms were weak as I tried to make my way by pulling branches and whatever could help me to drag myself further towards the very wanted top. At that moment, my husband asked me in his sweetest voice: ‘honey, would you like us to go back or keep going? It’s your call’. At that moment, I was faced with all my fears, my hard moments of hard training and a choice that would lead me to the top of a wanted dream or to a warm bath at the Naro Moru River Lodge. What did I do? I kept going for quite some good extra hours until we made it!!!! Yes, I actually was able to make it to the Teleki Lodge at 14200 feet!!!! Hurrah! I couldn’t believe it! I was actually that woman wearing dirty hiking clothes in the middle of nowhere having a lifetime adventure.

I was exhausted and freezing cold. My husband couldn’t wait to get to the real top: Point Lenana. So, I was faced with the same question again: 'Do you want to go for Point Lenana tomorrow at 3 am or hang around Teleki?'.

That was a difficult choice that took me just few minutes to reply: I will hang in here! So, I stayed and I did not reach the real top.

So, does it matter? It’s been +8 years since we made that trip and I consider it one of the peak moments of my life. The probe that when you want something, you prepare, you set your mind and your heart to it and then, you go, go, go and keep going until you make it. I may not have reached the snowy Point Lenana but I made it much higher to where I’d ever dreamed of. I made it to that forgotten corner in my heart that treasured the childhood dreams and converted them in adulthood adventures. I made it to the image of the person I can be whenever I want it to be. I created the amazing possibility of repeating the story for the rest of my life stretching my own self-imposed boundaries out of any comfort zone to the adventures that lie in front of me to be explored and the tops to be reached while I may hang in there for a little while between them.

Go for your dreams.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream”.

C.S. Lewis.

P.S. Oh! The picture above is the Teleki Lodge. A day there feels like touching the clouds with your feet still on Planet Earth.

What's luck got to do with it?

2010-02-09T23:43:00.002-06:00

I’ve had a ‘lucky’ day today as I was able to coach all my clients over the phone while also doing some networking mixing, blogging, online networking, cooking and playing with my kids….I guess I was just ‘lucky’ that I had time to do all of that today or wasn’t I?

Don’t you hate it when you get to achieve something really important at work or in your personal life and people blame it to your luck?

Certainly I’d love to be as lucky as William Kiefer who won big time in the lottery a week ago right here where I live. He is donating 60% of it to charity. I could have been the winner, if I only played the lottery!

If I let luck determined my life, then I’d be better off letting the stars determining my future. So, here’s to my original question, what does luck have to do with the outcome of our choices?

It is like swimming with sharks and having the bad luck of being bitten by one. Isn’t it truth we control our choices; therefore, our actions are consequence of our own purposeful intention?

My grandma never wished me luck when I was going for a hard test in college; she would place my head between her hands and whispered to my ears her hopes that my judgment would make the right call. Didn’t I know how wise her words were at the time!

Luck is not anything else that the results of your judgment call or is it simply that?

I have a client who lost her very successful job at a major international corporation, after working with me in refining her Professional Brand; she did her homework and started selling it among her contacts. She got interviews with stakeholders and decision makers of companies that did not even have jobs available on her technical field as she understood the importance of being ahead of the game, but guessed what; she got a job only a few weeks after her job search started. Wasn’t she ‘lucky’?

Is it a ‘lucky’ coincidence to find the job of your dreams or just the result of a lot of hard work, preparation and use of multiple resources?

I see quite often e-mails from people asking for help to find a job just because they’ve never done a bad job in their careers. I wonder they must be pretty average not to define themselves in positive terms. Those people do not provide a compelling reason to help them, to refer them to a potential employer. They do not even offer a single career highlight to be used in their ‘defense’; therefore, they are out of luck when nobody passes their resume to potential hiring managers or recruiters.

Decide today to play your lucky card! That means, go and invest in yourself, work hard towards your vision and keep an eye on your competition. Thomas Jefferson said: I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it’.

Does the big fish really eat the smaller one?

2010-02-08T22:42:00.005-06:00

Successful entrepreneurs and professionals can tell you how networking has been core to the fulfillment of their visions. Even politicians have figured this out already. Social Networking for instance was Key to Scott Brown's success. Tea party twitterers, Facebook friends, and Blogspot buddies helped him win big time as a junior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
If examples like this are all around us probing how networking and social media influence stakeholders and decision makers; then, why do people listen to the toxic voices in their heads? Why do they hide behind a resume that does not sell? Why do they have a plain profile in LinkedIn and let hideous Facebook pictures filter in the web for recruiters to see when they Google their names? Why do they network rarely and just come to terms with the network when in urgent need? Why don’t they invest in themselves and give up their chance for success?

It is like a ‘big fish theory’ in which by replicating the force of nature, the bigger fish eats the smaller one creating a chain reaction. But does it work for us that way? Does it have to be like that?

What makes a fish a big one? The size? Its speed? Its power? As we are talking on people terms let’s discard size as a factor and think on speed and power.

But, how can any of us compete against bigger fishes on this sea to be faster at catching the opportunities and powerful enough to win over our competitors? NETWORKING! Look at the picture.

What makes the power of the ‘big’ fish? A bunch of synchronized little fishes moving on the same direction towards a goal. They are connected. They all know why they want; they are following the leader within.

Switch your perspective for a minute and look at your current situation in ‘fish terms’. Where is your network? Have you identified your key allies, mentors, sources of major expertise, best practice holders? Have you identified your own Brand to market it effectively? And are you truly connected to a common ground level to swim at a more powerful speed towards each other’s vision?

Can you visualize yourself moving faster, smarter and with much less struggle by tapping into the resources of your Network? I can. Then, what are you waiting for?

"Our success has really been based on partnerships from the very beginning."

- Bill Gates

Will the Universe conspire in your job transitioning favor this 2010?

2010-02-08T00:31:00.000-06:00

“When you want something, the entire universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”

This is a phrase that comes from one of my favorite personal books - the Alquimist by Paulo Coelho -. When I read it back in 1997 while I was on a long solo business trip to UK I was very impacted by it. It was a perfect moment in my life and a phrase that made sense to it. Inspirational stuff you may say.

Are you a believer? Are you inspired? Do you truly believe in yourself? What about your vision? How are you coming across to those that encounter you? What is the perception you create with your Brand? Are you pushing the Universe to conspire in your favor or sitting in front of your computer screen hoping to be discovered by a head hunter that comes across your resume at a job board?

I love conspiracies, the intellectual ones driven with such passion that can’t be defeated. Are you a key actor in your own conspiracy?

First and foremost, take full accountability of your life. Then, ask yourself:

1. Are you still aware of your vision? When was the last time you stopped to reflect on it?

2. Are your actions connected to it? Is your job transitioning where you want it to be? Are you taking every necessary –well planned and prepared – step to get you to your vision?

3. How aligned are your resources to it? What kind of networking, volunteering, and contribution you are making to ensure you are not one number of the unemployment statistics? Are you paying forward or you're always looking for something?

4. Are you having some fun? Can you tell, honestly, you are doing your best? Do you remember the Jerry Maguire movie in which there is a part Jerry finally gets what it really means to be #1. Being oneself, dreaming big time, daring and risking it all and above all, using a very distinctive brand that eventually put him in top of his competition to win it all.

5. Do people trust you? Gain TRUST as your biggest commodity value. Have you read the Speed of Trust by Covey? If high trust organizations outperform low trust organizations by 286% on Total Return to Shareholders can you imagine how your total return will be when you manage your own Professional Brand by adding Trust as one of its core competencies?

Get inspired in your job transition process. It is all right to experience ups and downs. The job, the unemployment, the size of the house or the car will never determine who you are. You do!

Remember …“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. “ Mark Twain

Are you a Jay Leno or a Conan O’Brian?

2010-01-14T11:13:00.003-06:00

Like most of us - whether we like it or not – the news are all about the feud between NBC, Jay Leno and Conan O’Brian. It would probably be one of those unfortunate events that we would discard as trash if it wasn’t by the fact that one of the characters may be terminated right in front of the public eye.

I am not much of a TV night show follower but I went to the web and watched the Internet clips in which Jimmy Kimmel made a parody of Leno and Letterman did the same in his own style. In case you don’t know, they are the competition and have taken sides with O’Brian. Now the question is: Is it fair for Leno or O’Brian to be on the spot for a NBC decision?

And here’s how I think this matter relates to most of us.

1. Have you ever got transferred to do a job that someone else did before being terminated? Or promoted to a higher level job?

2. Have you been a new hire to replace someone who was fired?

3. Have you started a new job that you have not many qualifications for and worry that your performance may not be up to speed to what is expected?

4. Have you been transferred to a job you did not even asked for and placed under a Personal Improvement Plan just a few months after starting it?

5. Do you feel exposed and on the spotlight due to your own job scope changes and Company restructuring?

I am sure we did not have the cameras following us but we certainly had peers talking about it either on our face or in our back.

How others perceive you are at work does not have to do to whether you are the kindest person on Earth or not but how you do your job and manage relationships with others. At times, your professional brand will be placed under the public scrutiny (not as much as Jay Leno’s Brand I hope!) but if you have a clear level of consciousness on the critical elements of your Brand, then you should be able to manage either a ‘damage control’ strategy or a campaign that sells its attributes as its best.

A former manager I had taught me when I was on my early career that perception was everything. I have struggled for years with the concept (even now) but if a strong percentage on how decisions are made depends on what others think of us, wouldn’t it be nice that we assumed CONTROL of our Brand to move on and successfully into quiet waters?

I am curious how a corporation like NBC is going to manage a decision that due to the current economy will have a lot of repercussion in the public perception but I am even more interested in seeing how the story will unfold for Leno and O’Brian in their own Branding strategies and campaigns.

Now, what would you do if those were your shoes? Do you know your own professional brand well enough to manage it consistently and create an aligned perception of it across the board?

Is it funnier to laugh at someone else's expenses? Hum! well, yes, only if we are talking about Leno and O'Brian who are certainly doing a fantastic job in making us laugh at their business.

Open Up your presents today!

2009-12-25T21:24:00.001-06:00

How delightful is to open a new present and ‘play’ with it. That new mini I-Pod or the coffee maker, the new bike or the special craft made by your kids…mmmm! Can you feel the distinctive smell?
I also love the feeling of finding one of my old toys. It is like when I go visiting my mother’s house and I go through those old photo albums and keepsakes, I get certainly nostalgic and I remember those ‘old times’ when things were different.

Then, my question is when did ‘different’ get a negative connotation? When did we start shaping ourselves to the 'play-doh' of the times forgetting our own texture and colors?

I have a fascination with originality. If it comes from your heart and you’ve taken the best is there combining it with your own genius, then we have ‘something’ and even we may get quite a number of those ‘things’. Do you know what those things are? IDEAS! your own and unique ideas. The ones that trigger your actions to where nobody else has put foot on before…your own vision!

Everyone has a gift, the main obstacle to use it resides it in oneself. Either there is a cultural reason that prevents you to enjoy your own greatness at something or a personal one that acts like a barrier with a huge sign that says: TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

But why are you prosecuting yourself for daring to think and dream BIG? How about playing pretend these holidays to figure out you have the right to claim a territory of your own in your life? There, you can be your own CEO to collect your dues and direct your future at your best on your own to what is there waiting for you to dare to obtain it.

Are you laying on your couch Resting In Peace while you watch a re-run of the Survivor finale or brainstorming already in what to do different, what lessons have you learned already that could take you to a next level in your career and life in 2010?

It is your call, your business, your choice as you are the Producer, Director and main actor in your own reality show called: Living a life you deserve to call your own!

Open up your presents (=TALENTS) today and enjoy the smell, the feeling, the excitement of starting to play again with them!

Have fun!

What moves you to action is what makes you WHOLE

2009-12-22T22:01:00.004-06:00

Two days ago while meeting a spiritual counselor I’ve known since I was a child I couldn’t help but laughing at her very ‘apparently simple’ reflection that she was grateful to God for having giving her health. This comes from someone who has had multiple sclerosis for most of her adult years. She is one of the most amazing individuals I’ve met in my lifetime. When she talks to you while sitting on her wheelchair, her strength, joy, faith and evident choice of happiness makes you forget everything else but the power of her words and her message. She makes me wonder about how inaccurate the term ‘handicapped’ can be on a situation like this. Is she a handicapped individual for not using her body fully or are we the handicapped ones for not making the difficult choices that get us closer to our vision?

She has listened to people problems almost everyday for more than 40 years (maybe even more than 50!). She has supported, encouraged and moved others to action. She’s done more from the wheelchair in her room – without Internet connection - than most.

She is an inspiration and a true example to follow. Then, I am inspired by the Season (it is Christmas to me, by the way) and moved deeply by her presence and life example. Now, what moves you? What can take you to the next level? I mean, what can get you from your thoughts to real brave coherent actions?

I’ve witnessed and listened this 2009 to many stories of people who impacted by their surroundings blame the outcome of their lives to whatever events have happened to them, instead of, reflecting on the choices that put them on that particular spot on the first place.

How wonderful would be for all to take advantage of the Season to re-think in what makes us handicapped individuals or whole fulfilled ones?

No background noise or reactions to words but openness to what is there to really listen to. I met this extraordinary woman who I am immensely proud to call not just my friend but a spiritual guide and I listened with my heart, soul and ears to what her words/actions had to tell me. I also stayed in the moment, ‘squeezed’ the best of it and have taken it with me to think further.

As she is thankful to God for her health I am thankful to all the fallings, doors shut on my face, broken pieces and leaps of faith…I am thankful that I am willing to get out of the career coaching talk to move into a personal territory that triggers to most our choices; therefore, our current lives and future to make us whole with no excuse but the one we may paint in our minds on our own.

I see the choices she’s made everyday to be happy inasmuch of her physical pain and health difficulties but her election is to be thankful, to be at God’s service by helping others to choose what will hopefully make them whole and happier.

Everyday it is up to you what path to take to move you closer to what you truly want that creates some sense to your life and a meaning to it or as I even coach my own little kids at every single chance ‘happiness is a choice and not something that happens to some’.

P.S. I dedicate this to you my dear Alida, even if you do not have Internet access in your room, I am sure your life has changed the world for the better!

The Top Ten Presents to give to yourself this Season (and mostly free!)

2009-12-15T23:19:00.000-06:00

Are you overwhelmed by the Holidays, the giving, the sharing, the socializing, the traveling, the mailing, the calling and the waiting for that special present you’ve been looking forward to get for a while (e.g. a job to many). Well, I came up with a list of my top 10 presents you could seriously enjoy by making you a happier person this Season ; therefore, a more likeable to anyone in your network.

1. Give yourself a day. Yes, it may sound overly redundant to tell you to do this as we apparently do this every day, the truth? Can you book a date with yourself to do just the things that make you happy? What about having your favorite breakfast, wearing your favorite clothes, listening to your favorite song while singing it out loud and having a blast with yourself for a whole day? Reward: Inner Peace and Joy.

2. Choose a Cause to give. I realize that times have changed, the unemployment rate is higher and economy is not at its best but most of us can make a difference if we compromise with an initiative we can relate to. Let’s say money is not in the booming department, still you can volunteer your time or your talent to make a difference with the added benefit of applying your experience and gaining visibility.

3. Be a friend. Everybody is so busy and stressed out these days that smiling has become a rarity. Use those face muscles and exercise, assume the best in others, adopt acceptance instead of judgment in your heart and spread the joy.

4. Surprise the ones you care about. A hand written letter instead of an e-mail, sipping some cocoa while enjoying a good fire, a hug and some appreciation words to that relative you care but do not get along with.

5. Be Thankful. Have you forgotten to thank the former colleague that referred to you to a key business contact that landed you a job? What about appreciating the effort others put on your cause asking nothing in reward but a thank you? Go and enjoy ‘paying your gratitude dues’ as it is never too late.

6. Pay Forward. I am glad you’ve made possible some of your goals, now what about helping others to do the same. The paying forward initiative is such a great way to embrace the best you are and you can achieve by planting your good deeds along your path.

7. Get out of your comfort zone. Assuming you have already tried a number of simultaneous resources to get you closer to your destination, what about pushing yourself out of your box to try something new. For those working on their presentation skills, what about trying Ignite or pecha-kucha instead of Toastmasters? Adventuring into unknown territory can certainly triggers your curiosity, empower your creativity and refine your ability to transfer your skills more effectively.

8. Dream a Dream! As a child I would dream of many things, the amazing part of the story is that I was actually taught to visualize and work hard towards my vision. A teaching I thought to be very personal has become what many called ‘the secret’. Do you remember the Kevin Costner movie in which he heard over and over again ‘If you build it, they’ll come’? Well, not trying to spoil the secret that there is not secret but to dare to dream big and work smart to make it true.

9. Play Pretend. Assume you’ve made it all the way to the top of that high mountain you have envisioned yourself. Watch around that vision, how it feels, how it looks like, where it is happening, who your allies are and write it down! Details count and playing pretend is such a fun and productive exercise to create a compelling vision.

10. Celebrate. Are you the result of a series of accidents in your life that happened to you or the creator of your own universe, the architect of its grounds, surroundings and outcomes? You are the product of your own choices and the amazing learning and experience you have acquired along the way is a great reason to celebrate. List your top 10 reasons for celebration and get in the Holiday season with joy, a vision and the confidence you will be at your best in 2010!

Happy Holidays!!!!

Are you a Do-Do?

2009-11-11T11:07:00.001-06:00

Are you the kind of person that when asked ‘JUMP’ the reply is always ‘HOW HIGH’? And there you go jumping all along everyday at the beat of what others instruct you to do. Or, are you the workaholic that does a zillion things one after the other without reasoning the sense of all that work?

I go to a HRM class every other Saturday at Rice University where a wonderful professor, Mr. Davis, is always opening discussions about day-to-day HR matters. He empowers the class to be strategic on their thinking; therefore, more efficient in their decisions and definitely more aligned to the business needs.

He said something in one of the classes that has resonated with me since I’ve heard it. If you do a lot of things all the time, everyday with no strategic planning and no reflection (review) on the results, then you are repeating yourself constantly, so what happens when you just do, do, do stuff all the time? You become a do-do!!!!

Isn’t that obvious? Yes, you need that vision to align your action to and the space to check they are moving you on the direction you want to go. But lots of folks have become precisely a ‘do-do’ type of professionals and even worse, ‘do-do’ persons.

Organizations are laying off people resulting in much more work for those keeping their jobs and those who are job transitioning feel such a pressure that keep applying to job after job without thinking or assessing what resources are more effective in their search.

I can think of many disadvantages of being a do-do, such as:

1. Level of stress is much higher. I know someone whose health has been jeopardized a few times by the obsession of doing too much with no planning. Every week is the same story, level of stress, same old complaining talk of how time is never enough. How many trips to the emergency room will take for this individual to realize a CHANGE is needed?

2. Lack of joy. What pleasure is there to complete one thing after the other without celebrating any success, completion or closure of any of it? I couldn’t believe these days when I got a letter from my daughter’s school notifying the report card would be sent this Friday and reminding the parents the need to celebrate their kids’ achievements instead of focusing on what did not work on this period. Whoao! Are people even going so far in their obsession to do things that they do not even celebrate anymore their kids’ accomplishments? Then, where is the joy in the day-to-day living?

3. Routine kills creativity. If you assume your day is what you get and there is no sense to change any of it, can you imagine the level of boredom? Not counting the mechanical reaction towards every request to JUMP and keep JUMPING. There is a Charly Chaplin movie I love that makes a parody of a factory worker that does a manual activity with his hands all day and that when leaving work his hands keep moving on the same way no matter what he is doing or who he is with. Hilarious and sad, so are you out of ideas already?

4. A network disabler. Who wants to be around a ‘do-do’ or hire one? Yes, I know it depends on the job but when you have three interview candidates for a job and 2 out of 3 are ‘do-dos’ and there is that one that takes the time to reason and learn from previous experiences, who do you think will get hired? . Also, if you see someone who repeats itself all the time and no matter how long you see that person there is no change, what value would that person add to your network?

Now, use your ‘life brakes’, stop and start thinking on your vision, that strategy you need to make some sense of your actions and creativity to effectively achieve what you really want to have.

At the end, it is about how you decide to spend everyday what will make your life/job what you want it to be.

So, get rid of the ‘do-do’ spirit and awake the amazing person who hides beneath the covers of ‘too much work to do and too little time to think on anything else’.

Be an enabler of your life and career! BE!

Your coach,

Mariela

Are you on a diet these days?

2009-11-10T11:50:00.001-06:00

Have you met those folks (not you, of course!) that when being a bit overweight and eating a big slice of pizza speak about the wonderful diet they are thinking on starting on Monday? And then, Monday comes; the diet is broken on Tuesday by that piece of candy nobody can refuse to have. Even if your diet last a whole week, it is a horrible week filled with cravings for everything you are missing that you want to have. You become a ‘foodaholic’, somebody whose life turns into an obsession with whatever cannot be eaten instead of enjoying the pleasures of other healthier foods available right at your table.

So, what does all this diet talk have to do with your career transition and/or development plan?

Easy answer, most people when looking for either a job or a career switch tend to focus in what they do NOT have, they get obsessed on that particular skill that they have NOT mastered and which according to their expectations they should be better at. Then, there they go ready to move into a whole world of opportunities thinking and hoping nobody out there finds out they do not have that, yes, that particular thing they have created and built into their minds as a barrier, an obstacle that will decrease their chances to be noticed or selected to what they want. They become ‘gapholic’ people that only see the gaps and the holes they believe make them incomplete.

What chances have somebody like that to be successful on this ‘career diet plan’? What do you think? Almost none. Frankly, there is nothing more appealing than precisely the opposite.

Have you met those ‘health gurus’ that when talking to you resemble precisely the image of everything you would expect from somebody that eats and lives healthy in the inside and outside. They do not seem to deprive themselves to what they need but to move forward with such a level of clarity to what they want. Have you got friends like that? They are attractive and inspiring. They truly walk the talk on what they believe it is best for them.

The same could apply to your career. What if you could live the dream and embrace who you are? Your achievements, your skills, your competencies, your built network, your own goals and acceptance of the potential you have to drive yourself to the top of that high mountain instead of the bottom of a high wall.

An effective career diet plan requires guts to believe you can and preparation to make you more effective in your path, it does not take away what you enjoy but takes you closer to what brings you joy: that job you have always wanted or the corporation you think you’d be perfect for. Can you imagine going to a networking event or talking to an interviewer with the passion that comes from the clarity on your own ability to conquer and do beyond what anyone else in your shoes could do?

Doors will get open; people will notice you and you’ll be happier managing your own ‘career diet’.

So, step out of that pile of applications you have waiting for you on the job board you face everyday and start making phone calls to meet the people that will see what you bring with you on that amazing portfolio of attributes, achievements and competencies called: YOU!

Dare to do your best, dare to enjoy who you are and beat your competition while you do so. Walk the talk and BE!

Best success,
Your coach.

I love your accent!

2009-11-09T12:36:00.002-06:00

What happens when your communication gets impacted by your belief that your accent makes you incompetent of telling others your story? What are the consequences of having a second language but feeling unsecured about your ability to speak it without an accent to make your point effectively go across?

So, is it the accent or your lack of self-confidence the one jeopardizing your networking skills and a successful job transitioning process?

On my former corporate life I was exposed to a diverse platform of clients that were from everywhere you could think of, even from places I did not know existed in our global geography. The meaning was that I worked in a particular organization with a very inclusive culture in which accents were taken as part of the day-to-day communications and where everyone was able to ask, if not understanding somebody else's words due to this reality. It was not a barrier but a cultural enabler that made it cooler, funnier, more relaxed and certainly inclusive to the point in which you would feel at ease and at your best by the acceptance of it. No offense was taken as no offense was intended. There was a global management team that felt like the Miss Universe contest but without the looks!
Certainly, though we experience everyday the consequences of a global market, we also live mostly in a domestic/local job culture in which we'll likely face what is called 'minority' or 'majority' tagging games. Does this matter when we talk about your accent and your level of confidence to market your brand? Do you feel a 'minority', I mean, less that something bigger and greater called 'majority'? Hopefully, you don’t.
You make your own brand with your history and then, you reveal it to tell the story that will connect you to those wanting to hear it and buy it.
So, do I believe in Accent Reduction programs? Certainly, if it is going to help you make yourself understood and at ease under any circumstance, then go for it but if what you are having is not an accent problem but a self-confidence issue, then you are looking at the wrong resource to get you on the right track.
First, let me give you some very old news, everyone, yes, EVERYONE has an accent. It is part of your roots and who you are. The trick is not to let the accent determine your professional identity but your own brand to be the one that speaks by itself with its own attributes. Do not misunderstand my words, I believe that if you live in a host country and you call it home, wouldn't it make sense for you to learn the language of it? However, there is a big difference between the accent and the lack of language proficiency, don't you think?

Second, TRUST yourself, your own guts and instinct more than anything else. I get quite often clients that have forgotten their STAR which is the inner talent that made them successful in their career journey to a point in which they can list the value of what they did with clear and tangible contribution. How can you go to an interview if you do not believe you've got what it takes and blame it to your own 'minority' sense or 'accent' image? It is just an image you made with words that does not tell the whole story of who you are and your previous successes. Life is no accident, so do not make your career a matter of coincidences when it's always been a matter of preparation, hard work and readiness to take on the next steps.

Third, yes, some people suck! But at the end, it is how you react to what they do what gets you closer to your goal or takes you away from it. I confess I have an accent! Ops! Now you know, I share this amazing ‘unique’ attribute with you and guess what? I looove it. It is who I am and my story is to play with it. I speak faster at a social gathering and much slower at a professional one. It supports my openness to those willing to hear me and struggling to get me whenever my pronunciation does not come across in the way their listening is used to or my tongue is intending to. It also ensures my own willingness to be at my best squeezing every single chance to communicate. I learn everyday; I listen to the stories behind the accents to SEE the person that is telling it. I am amazed at the talent, the dreams, the goals, the possibilities, the incredible contributions people with accents have made and will keep making ensuring our world is a diverse and inclusive one in which we all do our homework to be open and to get what others are telling beyond the accents, beyond the biases and beyond the self-doubts.

Open up to the possibility that comes from your own self, your identity, your strengths, your own special and unique accent…your brand
And please, stay one more minute here to reflect on the amazing words shared by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander in their book The Art of Possibility (Harvard Business School Press):
‘We can make a conscious use of our way with words to define new frameworks for possibility that bring out the part of us that is most contributory, most unencumbered, most open to participation. And why not say that is who we really are?

Multiple Hats Career Development Plan

2009-10-25T02:12:00.001-05:00

Are you a procrastinating indecisive person? Or are you one of the zillion ‘multiple hats’ professionals coping with tons of choices every day?
Most of the reasons people give me everyday to procrastinate their important choices/actions is the inability to commit themselves to choose what ultimately will make them not just more effective in achieving their longer term goals but meeting their final dream destination.
I was just talking about it today with not just one but quite a few people and the conclusion is that …mmmm! Well, the truth is that there is not conclusion on the ‘Multiple Hat Career Development plan’ but a way to be happier and cooler about it.
I know there seems to be an infinite horizon when you look at the number/variety of hats we wear and choices that come with them such as, subscriptions, volunteering responsibilities, professional affiliations, affinity groups, training, certifications, social interactions, family commitments, pets, etc. But I also know that if you have a clear vision, what stops you is just the inability to believe you CAN tackle the task ahead by repeating your successful past choices - with the ‘experience’ as an added value - in your future and narrow your options, so then you begin recreating the success feeling that comes out of working hard towards a dream that is aligned to a personal/professional vision.
And what if what you need is just some extra courage? Then, go and talk to that mentor you have not seen in ages or seek guidance in a career coach. Ask questions and allow yourself to be humble in your own reflexion while you re-energize yourself and prepare for success.
You know that you can quit some hats, right? You can also save some others for the next season and wear the ones that get the best from you, so then you move somewhere that is closer to the place you wanted to go from the beginning.
Have you seen the lady at the wedding reception that missed reading the dress code note on the invitation and came casually dressed? That could be any of us if we do not ‘read our external/internal’ clues that tell us how far (or close) we are from our desired destination.
Ok, I confess, I am one of you, I mean, I am a ‘Multiple Hat’ professional and I make my choices everyday. Some of them are hard to make, especially when the heart is involved but nobody said the journey to a dream was easy. So, it may be, you sacrifice a little bit here and now but you will be getting much more in the longer run and saving the best for that final mile that lets you move to the winning podium of your life once you take control of it.
Assuming ownership and accountability not just for your choices, but actions and consequences that come from them with a good compass will not just ensure your sense of direction but your focus and sense of fulfillment; therefore, happiness.
Just remember to choose your hats wisely!

Is S-T-R-E-S-S winning this battle?

2009-10-18T20:26:00.000-05:00

According to the American Institute of Stress, surveys show that 75 to 90 percent of visits to primary care physicians are for stress-related complaints.
Then, a common element of the recession is the stress caused either by losing a job and the uncertainty of the unknown regarding what to do about it (like if we ever knew our future, anyway!).
Though I am not playing the Doctor's role in here I can certainly coach you about re-thinking how to cope with your level of stress on this uncertainty. The trick is staying resilient through the challenges of these life changing events. After all, we never know what challenges or difficulties lay ahead.
Then, if Resilience is about taking action to make the future better, may I suggest...?
I. Re-discover a vision to commit to.
Where is your passion? Where is that destiny you feel you belong to and the strategy and goals that indicate you are getting closer to it? When was the last time you thought of it?
II. Stay positive.
Yes, it is easier to say than to do it, but nothing works better for a healthy mind than a busy day full of things to do that are aligned to that vision. After all, optimism is a skill than can be learned.
If you lost your job and are 100% focused in finding a new one, find some fulfilling activities that complete your job hunting strategy and energize your spirit. E.g. talk to a mentor, volunteer in a non-profit group or schedule some needed friends' night out after a long week.
III. Think like a winner and act like one.
No, I am not telling you to move to 'fantasy island' when you still have bills to pay and a job to find to be able to meet your obligations, but your level of energy is perceived by those who interact with you on daily basis = your network!. What about listening to your favorite music when going to that professional networking meeting and getting there ready to promote the attributes of your brand instead of complaining about the cost of living and how hard the economy is? Does that sound like something dummy to do? Well, I've witnessed that kind of behavior and how it repels others. Then, instead of feeling sorry, switch your mood for grabbing that piece of pie that belongs to you. Be the owner of your own life by choosing to be a doer, not a complainer. Your successes are not the result of a series of accidents but the outcome of your talent and competency put into action.
IV. Take care of yourself.
Have you seen the fellow next door who always looks like he never washes his face even if it is 2:00 pm in the afternoon? Having a full agenda committed to your success means taking care of its most important asset: YOU! What about eating healthy? Exercising a little? Enjoying the small things of life and share a smile with others? Turn off that TV, leave the computer behind and take a walk. Refresh your mind and come back fully creative to face a new way to fulfill that career aspiration. Depression may be a serious matter for some not to be taken lightly, so pay a visit to that Doctor that you have not seen in ages and put your own mental and physical health as #1 priority.
V. Be Ready for Change.
You have no choice, as Charles Darwin figured this out: “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change".

And do not forget to laugh a little "...the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own folly - then you can let go and quickly move on."
- Dr. Spencer Johnson, Who Moved My Cheese?

The Mind Reading Syndrome

2009-10-17T19:17:00.000-05:00

An interview is a chance to probe who the best candidate for a job is, isn’t it?, so what happens when you believe to be that perfect match and once you leave the interview you never get a call back.
It may sound quite too much when you hear ‘prepare, prepare and prepare’ for the interview as it seems obvious, but in real life most people seem to prepare in their minds while going through their different resume versions and job description and never really rehearsing or role playing for the interview, hoping as a result what I will name as the ‘mind-reading syndrome’ outcome.
Now, take a look at some questions I’d like you to ask yourself to check whether you are a ‘mind-reading syndrome’ victim:

1. When you go to an interview, you:
a. Hope the interviewer will ask the easy open questions that provide the best freedom to choose what to say at your best
b. Dress for success and hope they like what they see
c. Have clarity on the key professional Brand messages you are ready to sell
2. When talking to the interviewer, you:
a. Focus in telling your story
b. Listen to what the interviewer wants to know and read between lines
c. Ask proactive questions that show how prepare you are for the interview and the job
d. Share some personal stories ‘to connect’ to him/her
3. When leaving the interview, you:
a. Shake hands, thank the interviewer and leave the office hoping for the best
b. Do not leave the place until you have clarity on the next steps, decision making process and feedback on your own questions regarding the open position relationship map and career development for it
c. Go straight back home to send that thank you letter that will put you on the right spot

Now, what do you think? Have you got what it takes to learn from the experience and figure out what happened to that perfect job you were so ready for but never heard anything back on? Are you doing your homework to verbalize while role-playing with one of your allies what you’ve got to tell while in the interview? Have you identified what distinguishes you from the other candidates? Have you done your research on the company, networked among your key contacts stories about its corporate culture, business dynamics and decision making process? Have you worked on your virtual brand to ensure once you are done the interviewer will find a remarkable profile on the web that tells a positive story about your track record with referrals included (e.g. LinkedIn)? Are you ready to thank the ones that not just interviewed you but potentially referred you to it?

So, what about switching for a minute the syndrome and making it your responsibility, so then you are so prepared in a way that gets you to proactively respond with tangible and concise examples what makes you not only competent for that job but a perfect fit for it.
And what if that calls you never got did not have anything to do with you but with the fact that there may have been another preferred candidate selected?
The fact is that I could give you lots of excuses (or reasons) to push you to be under the ‘mind-reading syndrome’ for a looong time, but I will do you a favor and just tell you that learning from your own stories and growing your Brand in between will not make you a mind-reader but a successful job seeker that knows how to move on to get to a goal and achieve a career vision.

“It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.“- Moliere

“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.“ William Feather

Great Networking Rewards Program

2009-10-13T08:12:00.000-05:00

'Get Great Networking Rewards by Earning Points with Thank you notes '...wouldn't you like a program like that?
Though, ALL of us do some level of networking the basic rules of asking for what you want (need) by saying please and thanking properly your contact for getting back to you with a 'Thank you' seems not to be consistently applied across the board.
Your contact will never forget how appreciative you are of the time, effort or response generated by your polite request but will also NOT forget how you may obtain what you asked for and never bothered to come back with a simple 'thank you'.
During my career 'I've had both extremes' and I confess I've given much more to those appreciative of my time than the ones that got my attention, my referrals, my tips and never even bothered to thank me or update me on the success generated by that information.
The chances are it has happened to you!
How wonderful to have a Brand that reflects courtesy and kindness to manage effective relationships with your network. Even better a Brand that plays the networking game of 'give and take' at its best. Doing so will open you doors to wonderful and unthinkable opportunities that lie ahead of you if you dare not just to think bold but act kindly.
So, how many points have you earned for your Networking Reward Program this month?
Don't miss this opportunity to expand your job search network even when you may not be looking for a job at this time!

"To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude" Albert Schweitzer (Humanitarian).

Surviving the crisis or creating opportunities?

2009-09-07T17:35:00.000-05:00

It is amazing the entrepreneurial talent some people have when facing a crisis. Just go back in History and check info related to the new fortunes amazed by the Great depression (e.g. HP; Century Fox, etc) and Oil shock & market crash (e.g. Microsoft) and you’ll find some very inspirational stuff that will empower you to look at your current present situation with different glasses.
But beyond the radical measures you’ve got to make to simply survive how do you tune up your brain to create lasting opportunities?
1. Switch your definition of ‘insanity’. Have your menu changed! How can you lose weight if you keep having the same diet? Or how can you achieve your goals if you spend your time thinking and doing the same stuff in a cycling mode that repeats itself by following self-made steps previously marked with the no success sign?.
2. Dare to try something new. A leap of faith does not necessarily implies that you’ve got to risk it all to win when you can actually start making small changes along the way to grab your piece of pie or get closer to your goals.
3. Practice, Practice, Practice. Do you remember the story of the vacuum cleaner entrepreneur that took years and lots of failures to create an empire? Dyson is sure that the key to success in design engineering is all about making mistakes. According to him, each mistake brings you closer to a functioning design. Just don't quit.
4. Get out of the ‘fear hole’. Or like David Ramsey says, “Without a doubt fear drives you to mediocrity. Fear keeps you at a job you hate. Fear keeps you from going and living your dreams." Dare to live the live you want and be strategic and operational in working towards your dream job.
5. Be at your best everyday and no less! Do you remember the last time you lie on the grass looking at the clouds trying to figure out their different shapes? You were there connected to that moment in time, wasn’t that a fantastic moment to remember later on? What about remembering for a minute the times you were at your best, finding the pattern and recreating those moments in your present?
The power of creating knowingly the path you want by putting the pieces of your own puzzle together is valuable just because of your own acceptance to try it at your best today!
Go and grab some inspirations that lead to action..
Create, not just react.
Be at your best and not just survive.
If you did it before, chances are you’ll do it again!

So...what's your brand?

2009-06-23T10:09:00.000-05:00

Every time I am going to meet a prospective client I Google his/her name to find out more about that person. I am truly interested in understanding whether that individual is up to date in knowing and marketing his/her professional brand or what makes him/her distinctive. Or as William Arruda says: 'What makes you unique makes you successful'.
It is an evolutionary process that implies daring to dream BIG and self-explore and re-discover yourself with glasses that will go through every strength, skills, ability, previous successes, personal characteristics and lessons learned...your own expertise in that personal/professional self is what will make you successful in developing your own brand. There is just one single YOU! Once you have clarity on that dream and you have discovered what makes you unique, then there is time to design the path that will help you fulfill your destiny. And believe me, that path is brand-embedded and self changing.
All strong brands evolve with the times. You can read the current US automobile industry crisis in newspapers and their own critical evolution to adjust to a greener and a more fuel efficient demanding crowd.
Who does not know" 'Change you can believe in' as such a powerful brand backed up by not just words but facts. Independently of your political views you've got to admire the ability to put together such a powerful image in the voters' minds.
You MUST really know yourself, so you can have a successful brand.
If I ask you what makes you distinctive or what hiring managers ask a lot of times: Why should I hire you and you do not have an effective and passionate reply then, you are losing your momentum to distinguish yourself from the crowd, from those zillion applicants to the job you want...it is not what makes you right to a job what will get your foot into that office but what makes you the best possible fit for it.
Tom Peters in his marvelous way puts it this way: "We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."
So, there you go, you either have a distinctive brand on these particularly competitive times or else!

Creating, building and transforming an Affinity group to a Powerful network!

2009-06-01T23:46:00.000-05:00

I have been fortunate to be part of the Founding committee of the V-AAT Professional network which first event was delivered VERY successfully last Thursday with 90+ participants and a growing waiting list. Having a great speaker like Dennis Tardan and its inspirational vision of what the future holds for a new network like ours was enough to get people raising their hands looking for an opportunity to share the words they never thought of sharing with other mostly Venezuelan professionals in the same room. A magical moment filled by pride, collaboration, openness, volunteering, knowledge sharing and willingness to keep the network moving on. Oh! A night I will never forget!

When I was approached by a V-AAT board member few weeks ago with quite a challenge to create something very unique and needed from nothing I had to rely in some few essentials:
1. Defining the common dream to connect our hearts to: Our Vision and goals for this network
2. Setting up the strategy to get to it (e.g. sponsorship and allies to connect people with the idea)
3. Resources available to open doors to a community used to work at their best by themselves but in need to be equipped more efficiently in how to share best practice/knowledge in the US with others wearing the same or similar shoes. This is the beginning of a transformational movement that will eventually switch all professionals involved from group members to Network members (and there is a BIG difference between the two!)
4. A challenging timeline!

We literally started from zero finding the speaker through a previous engagement he had at the HR Roundtable, then creating the opportunity in which the amazing happened when both of us - Dennis Tardan and myself - found out that we both were Appreciative Inquiry practitioners, in other words, the Power of Inquiry in full was proven once more on the execution of this beautiful 1st. time initiative.

Having a speaker made it easier to enroll sponsors (at least we thought so at the time!) and so, we knocked on all possible doors using all our professional and personal influences to impact with our words the perception that the future will not be less than magnificent for the evolution, development and growth of the network.

Networking made the difference and it was the key of success for the event! It made possible that we were able to speed our learning curve by the mentoring of folks like Angela Moretti of Houston Coaches and attract the attention of our next meeting speakers - Mike Demarest and Kevin Blasco - who as Senior Intn'l Recruiters at Conoco-Phillips will share some 'insiders' information' with the participants for the August 27th event.

A happy ending story that translates in a wonderful beginning that will prove:
1. A clear vision that connects the emotional intelligence to the intellects of those to share the journey with does wonders!
2. A strong professional brand that empowers people to give you a 'leap of faith' for a dream (or a cause if you feel more comfortable calling it that way) due to a proven track record of always delivering what's been promised!
3. A team that gets the best of its members, non-judgmental but open to new ideas and volunteers to make them happen!
4. The best that people have to offer when you expect the best they can provide! If you know you can and you share your belief on what others can do, the synergy magic will occur!

I am thrilled to be part of this team to share a wonderful journey that promises a future of changes for a community that is mostly composed by first generation professional immigrants to a Country that we have adopted as home!

Now, it is time to start the whole cycle again by recruiting sponsors and allies for the next event!

Do you want to be part of this V-AAT Professional Network and work with us by being a sponsor or volunteering your services? And do you want to get news/invitations for future events? Then, E-Mail to vaat_texas@yahoo.com .

Best success!

Networkers don't bite your hand!

2009-05-01T10:47:00.000-05:00

I confess I am a Networking cheerleader! I can't get enough of its benefits and I facilitate my clients the process in which they raise their level of comfort with it to be more successful.
Here are the most frequent excuses I have found that prevent people to do effective networking:
1. I do not have the time now. That is the #1 procrastinating excuse for people that find the time to TIVO and watch their favorite TV shows, play golf every Saturday or spend quite a number of hours a week looking for a job on the web. My response back is: what is important to you? If you want to advance your career or just find that job that will allow you to get your bills back on track, then you have no choice but network yourself into those affinity groups that allow you to expand your contacts and strengthen your professional brand in a way that is more visible for potential employers. It works!!!! The CareerXRoad's 2007 Annual Sources of Hire Survey shows that 34% of new hires brought in from outside an organization were due to employee referrals.
2. I do not like or do not know how to engage in small talk with strangers. There are lots of things we all feel uncomfortable in doing and that may be one of them. As many others, you'll have to figure a way to overcome that barrier and get yourself into the spotlight if you want to get out of the anonymous pile of applicants that each recruiter gets for a job. So, what to do? Make a script, prepare for that network talk, practice your 30 seconds branding speech about who you are, what you do and your professional highlights. And be ready to respond to any further inquiry on what you've done that demonstrates with clear and tangible examples your successes and contributions. But hey! Do not forget to listen and keeping attentive to clues that eventually will move you to the right direction.
3. What if I get rejected? There are lots of people at a networking gathering event. Everyone is looking to extend their own networks and some have a further clarity on the type of people they are looking to meet. Do not spend more time than necessary with people you feel you do not have any commonality with. Go to the next person and start over. Remember, not everyone is skillful at these meetings. That is why there are so many resources to learn the art of networking. A couple of books I've enjoyed and recommend reading are Breakthrough Networking: Building Relationships That Last and Guerrilla PR wired. Remember, the chances are that once you have become a regular member of a network, its members will acknowledge your presence and your professional brand will have better chances to be recognized.
4. I do not know anyone there! Well, isn't that the point of networking? Yes, you are entitled to have - like most of us - butterflies in your stomach the first time to go to a meeting and you do not know anyone, but as everything takes practice you can just win by stretching out of your comfort zone to network. It is a marvelous learning experience that has only benefits.

So, are you ready to go and move on beyond your excuses to network and build your brand successfully?
And as my Mom used to say (like most) when I was little: Try it, you may like it.

Immigrant Latino Unemployment and tools to get out of the statistics

2009-03-10T14:52:00.000-05:00

What can we - Latinos - do to take full responsibility of our own 'statistics' in terms of the job we are looking for and ways to get it.
There are many reasons to play smarter at these particular times, to do what makes sense in terms of building your professional brand, networking actively, using simultaneous job / business sources and keeping on top of the market trends and data.
One of the alternatives to play smart is to do what is called Research Informational Interviews which consist in the approach you'll make as a candidate to have a productive talk to a successful professional in the field of your interest regarding your own transition and ways to improve your own productivity as per that matter.
That way you can have a 'sense-check' on your own professional branding perception, get insiders info regarding a particular company or industry and upgrade your job marketing skills more efficiently. You shouldn't take more than 30 minutes of somebody's agenda to do this unless it is somebody you have a closer relationship with. Still, I wouldn't ever take more than 1 hour of anybody's time to have a conversation like this.
You can split the info you want to get on:
1. The Person: What are the tips that have made him/her successful on his/her field e.g. education, training, personal characteristics, etc. What are the lessons learned you could get from his/her track record and any tips for you.
2. The Business: Is it expanding or contracting? Are there any 'hot' skills in demand?
3. Feedback and Potential Referrals: Share in a very professional, tangible results oriented way your background and ask him/her to take a look at your resume, question on reference to potential strengths or areas you may consider to market more (or less) aggressively. Once you get good constructive impact and you consider there has been a positive conversation ask kindly whether he/she could refer you to potential employers on the field. e.g. Would you refer me to other people in the field who may have some useful info for my job market exploration process? Could I use your name as a referral to contact them? Do you know any organization that could be interested on my set of skills?
4. Be grateful, keep on touch but do not overwhelm your contacts with more info than they need to know. It is good to keep a presence among potential employers but do not ever push too much as any perceived despair could potentially leave you alone on your search.

Remember to be S-M-A-R-T in achieving your goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely).

Keep on top of relevant employment/unemployment data. Do not hide your head like an ostrich but keep it up looking for clues.

See below the link for the Immigration Latino Unemployment report published recently by the Pew Research Org and a brief summary of it.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1120/immigrant-latino-unemployment-rises

“Unemployment and Job LossesChanges in unemployment during the recession reveal a rapidly worsening situation for foreign-born Hispanics, native-born Hispanics and blacks in the labor market. The unemployment rates for these groups increased by similar amounts from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008. However, the number of unemployed persons increased at a much faster rate for foreign-born Hispanics.The unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics increased from 5.1% to 8.0%. The 2.9-percentage-point rise was greater than the 2.0-percentage-point increase in the overall economy as the unemployment rate for all persons rose from 4.6% to 6.6%.3 The unemployment rate for native-born Hispanics increased from 6.7% to 9.5%, and the rate for blacks went up from 8.6% to 11.5%. The increases in the unemployment rates for these groups were similar to the increase for foreign-born Hispanics. The number of unemployed persons in the U.S. economy rose by 3.1 million from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008, an increase of 44.3%. The percentage increase in the number unemployed was highest among foreign-born Latinos-58.3%, or 348,000 persons. Unemployment among native-born Latinos increased by 49.1% (329,000 persons) and among blacks by 34.4% (502,000 persons). Job losses are now widespread across the economy, but the construction sector remains the leading source of job loss for both Hispanics and non-Hispanics. Hispanics lost 343,000 jobs in this industry, and non-Hispanics lost 844,000 jobs. "

Having said that, look at the contrast between foreign-born and native-born Hispanics data regarding employment.

"Outcomes for foreign-born Hispanics were the worst by both key indicators of employment -- the percentage change in the number employed and the change in the employment rate.Employment fell for all groups except native-born Hispanics.
(...)"The percentage drop in employment was highest for foreign-born Hispanics. Their number employed fell 2.6%, in contrast with a loss of 1.7% for whites, 2.0% for blacks and 1.6% for Asians. "The employment rate for all groups, including native-born Hispanics, fell from the fourth quarter of 2007 to the fourth quarter of 2008. The decrease was greatest for foreign-born Hispanics -- 2.8 percentage points. The employment rate for white, black and Asian workers fell 1.3, 2.0 and 1.5 percentage points respectively. "

A Final Thought: El hombre bien preparado para la lucha ya ha conseguido medio triunfo.Miguel de Cervantes

Global Nomads and FIGT Intn'l Conference

2009-03-07T19:35:00.000-06:00

I had an amazing opportunity this last Friday to be part of the International Families in Global Transition Conference here in Houston where +300 people from everywhere came to join a wonderful dialogue and set of presentations and round tables oriented to maximize the learnings each on his/her particular field has gained by either living/working abroad or researching the subject.
I met a lady who has lived in 20 places in the last 20 years and some women who have faced the challenges of raising 'Third Culture Kids' by managing global careers around the world. Challenges are immense but the bridge that is being built for the new generations to cross is a wonderful and solid one full of inclusiveness, dialogue, listening, understanding and growth.
The connection among participants was very high as all of us some way or another had been a nomad or expatriate or inpatriate or foreigner or a returning local ...and we can all share the same boat by moving just forward using the tools available by the wonderful sharing achieved thanks to some pioneers on knowledge management on this field.
In conclusion, there are options, sources, blogs, web sites, people to talk to...but never again think you'll be alone crossing that bridge on your next move abroad.
Opportunities are infinite and it is up to you to grab them wherever they are.

As one of the facilitators shared:
'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes'
Marcel Proust

Surprise! I've been cheated on and dumped!!!

2009-03-04T21:58:00.000-06:00

'How did it happen?'' How did I not see the signs?'' I am just as surprised as anyone about this' 'It's been unexpected in so many levels' 'I thought it would never happen to me', after all, 'I've been always a top performer...'
Well, as much personal it may look like it is about being fired, terminated, downsized or whatever way you want to call it but as many may feel 'dumped'!

Were there signs you missed or just happened from nowhere? It is very likely there were signs indicating changes were on their way in the organization... or not.
1. Less clients or business profit.
2. More time to navigate on the web, to pause yourself during your day, to take a proper lunch out of the office sitting actually on a chair that is not the one in front of your computer.
3. Busy managers in very busy meetings.
4. A salary reduction, salary freeze, review of benefits...
5. Or none of the above.

Some phrases I've heard are:
'I had just played golf with my Manager three weeks before my termination and as I expressed some concern on the business situation he told me to relax as I was well appreciated in the company'
'My manager and I had a talk few days before and he told me I was a top performer that the company would never let go'
' I got a bonus the month before and then, this happened out of nowhere'

What does this mean? Can you do anything to stop it? Maybe yes or maybe not but there are certainly ways to minimize its impact and the transition between jobs.

Some ethical and very basic rules are:
1. Do the best with what you have as long as you have it=your job. Keep performing, do not allow the gossip get in between what you do and your achievements, do not be the 'bitch' at the office and keep the negativity outside of your vocabulary.
2. Keep networking extensively even more on these particular times. Do you still have a job? Great! now keep it that way. Ensure you can effectively highlight your professional contributions and job outcomes to managers, go and meet people from other departments, interact with other managers, expose yourself for success even outside the company. Have mentoring lunches with senior colleagues from other companies you admire, get their sense of the market and even some coaching on how to enable your success.
3. Use simultaneous resources to keep 'live' on the memory of key stakeholders in the job market. Get a linkedin profile, build an anonymous profile at a career job board (e.g. rigzone), google yourself and build your own brand not just on the virtual world but among your contacts.
4. Do not believe you are 'untouchable' but do not over stress about it, either. Keep the perspective and allow the benefits all of the above can bring to your career no matter what.

Build your future today, the one you have worked so hard to get, no matter what.

When it comes to the future, our task is not to foresee it, but rather to enable it to happen. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Stop the blaming! It is YOU!

2009-02-19T08:35:00.000-06:00

Some of the people impacted by the crisis get into a cycle of victimizing themselves as being 'under' a situation that simply requires them to be 'on top' of it.
It goes straight into the basics of asking yourself what kind of job seeker you are.
Are you the passive one that gets into Internet and apply to every single job posting matching with his skills waiting to be 'discovered' by the system and brought into the light?
Are you the indecise applicant that applies to lots of different things getting anything that jumps in between wether it is a professional chance to grow a career or just a job to get by?
Or are you willing to start doing what it takes to become a pro-active job seeker that uses a VARIETY of resources to get him into his career GOAL?

And there is when the key element of success gets noticed. Do you know what makes a difference between success and failure? YOU! yes, it is YOU!

So, take a breath and stop for a minute to think what can get you into an action gear mode that provides you with the really wanted results either on your job search or your career exploration (or both!).

Reflect on your strenghts and achievements. Most resumes and even linkedin profiles fail to mention what you have done and contributed in the past that could make you a candidate to be considered out of the pile. Hiring companies are looking to those who can potentially ADD value.
Re-think, then your value proposition to the market based on your results and successes.

Yes, there are lots of circumstances out there that get in the way, but one of the key elements that will get you out of the hole is precisely your inner motivation which together with your competencies and ability to insert successfully into challenging situations learned from previous experiences will land you that job or career you want.

There are many tools and resources for success available for you to move on. Google in Internet what you need, have informative meetings with those role models you may have, network actively with a purpose or hire a career coach to facilitate your journey but design a plan and start going for it!

So, the beginning starts with you!

Best success!

Your coach.

A strong alliance will always conquer!

2009-02-05T23:53:00.000-06:00

Defining your dream and then, the goals and the strategy that will lead you to it is not an easy task if you are just considering the smaller picture. However, once you identify your allies and work with them, it is a whole different story. What starts as a possibility becomes a formula for success!
The premise for this thinking is that there is nothing more powerful than synergism which translates in how the actions of your allies when working together for either your goals or theirs create a bigger effect that if doing it separately. It is like Michael Jordan once said: "Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships".
So, how far have you got to go to find your allies? The simpliest way is mainly about identifying in your life the people you have bonded to, those that when together create sparks of innovation. Your allies can be your mentor (s), relatives, friends, colleagues and at the end those that when put in a room with you make you a better strategic thinker.
We find allies in the most unexpected ways. There is the one that push us out of our comfort zone to look at the bigger picture, there is also the risk oriented ally that by sharing her on-going challenges and successes empower us to follow our own leap of faith and there is also the cheerleader type that constructevely provides the needed feedback to reinforce the capabilities we believe we had in place to get started on the first place. There is the business savvy one, the inter-cultural expert, the IT genious...go figure. Alliances can be vertical, horizontal and so on.
However, the ability to plan, create, embrace, re-inforce, promote and sustain an alliance is a key differentiator that could seriously mean the choice between achieving your goals or not.

But what makes an alliance a formula for success?
- It increases the delivery quality. Once you've cross-checked the talents in your alliance the capability of the sum of its parts is certainly bigger.
- It is goals oriented as everyone is focused on the future; therefore, improving performance and adding value is a 'must'.
- When times are tough, it grows stronger! Call it survival mode or just trusting that the collective experience will keep all the involved ones afloat. Whatever way you want to look at it, it works!
- It beats the competition whatever the goals of its members are. From looking for a job to growing a business or just building a friendship the ending result is so superior that chances are everyone is more fullfilled and satisfied at the end.
- It is a rewarding, win-win experience for everyone. Nothing is unconditional. Can you still say your proper please and thank-you?
- Allies tend to reciprocate not because they have to but because they want to. There is the commitment to look for improvement in your partner's business and their desire to do the same for yours.
- It makes the road less travelled a 'not-that-solitary' one.

So, ask yourself who your allies are and start working on a successful alliance (I've got some wonderful allies already to be very thankful to!!!)

Remember:
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved"
William Jennings Bryan

and,

"The path to greatness is along with others"
Baltasar Gracion

Seizing the opportunity every single day!

2009-02-03T12:54:00.000-06:00

It is beyond overwhelming all the news we are getting about the bad shape of the economy and lay offs. It could potentially be enough to 'downsize' your own job exploration goals not knowing that there are ways to use the resources you have to be successful.
1. Networking is not a job, it is not an add-up task. It is something that you just do and keep doing to keep up to date with your contacts, to be present in their minds and eventually in their consideration for potential employment. It is about opening doors,but how?
3. Count your assets! I do not mean that you go and get all your banking accounts together but actually assess your capabilities and past/current contributions and successes. Understand what you are worth, a clear awareness of your own self net value will do wonders in how you interact and the lasting impression you create in others.
2. P-E-N-A son 4 letras (the word 'shy' is just 4 letters). That is what I was always told as a kid and as a professional whenever looking to contact or to meet someone that I was interested either for personal or professional reasons. That means you can always reach for more. Keep extending your network, go to talks, conferences, networking events. Have a business card ready and a couple of lines that clearly set yourself for success.
5. Build your virtual network. There are many people that have very busy lives between work and personal/family commitments; however, the virtual social networks are wonderful to look at potential opportunities and extend your network. Be bold, participate in groups' discussions, ask questions, dare to respond, give an opinion. You'll be extending your network beyond the people you've known to those that are in your field in a more efficient way.
6. Believe in your product and its attributes which means BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. Re-discover your talents, search for examples when you overcame the impossible and remember how you felt when you were able to meet your goals. Was there a commonality? Be proud on your strengths and verbalize them in a tangible way for others to understand, still work on your areas of development, face them, commit to yourself.
All of this will help you have your eyes, mind and heart open to the opportunity when it arises, when you create it and then, seize it! catch it!.
As Martha Stewart shared on her book (The Martha Rules) "If the word risk makes you nervous, call it an investment".

Brand yourself to fight the bad economy...

2009-01-27T23:30:00.000-06:00

One of the big topics involved with my clients is always the subject of 'branding' themselves effectively.
I have found a wonderful article that I hope can call for a reflection, specially, during this global financial crisis. Now, do me a favor, finish the reading and google your name. Then, go and start taking control of it!

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2008/ca20081028_901617.htm

Brand Yourself to Fight the Bad Economy
Author Dan Schawbel lays out his strategy for individuals who want to make a name for themselves—or simply protect their jobs
By Marshall Goldsmith

My friend Dan Schawbel is a leading voice in the area of personal branding, focusing on helping individuals gain self-confidence, discover their passion, and develop a brand by using social media tools.
I invited Dan to discuss how personal branding can be used to fight the economic downturn and protect people from future layoffs. In his new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, he provides a detailed four-step strategy for success. Edited excerpts of our conversation follow:
Marshall Goldsmith: Dan, what exactly is personal branding, and why is it so important in today's challenging workplace?
Dan Schawbel: Personal branding is how we market ourselves to others. Each and every one of us has a brand because we are constantly being judged based on first impressions. Also, we are forced to sell our ideas and unique abilities to all stakeholders inside a company or as an entrepreneur.
Ten years ago, in a Web 1.0 world, your brand was hidden unless you were an executive at a leading company or a Hollywood celebrity. Now, with the evolution of the Internet into a Web 2.0 environment, every single person has a voice that can build or destroy their reputation and that of their company in an instant. Another major difference is that you needed a lot of mainstream press years ago to make a name for yourself. Today you can start a blog and join social networks for free.
Everyone from hiring managers to admissions officers and even talent agencies is scrubbing the Internet, either in search of their next hire or as a background check. According to Careerbuilder.com, 22% of managers screen their staff using social networks like Facebook, and Kaplan says that 10% of admissions officers verify potential students using social networks. There is a massive opportunity for you to position yourself as an extraordinary brand and be recruited based on your passion.
What led you to get involved with personal branding?
I graduated from Bentley College in 2006, after accumulating eight internships and seven leadership positions. During my interviews, hiring managers had noticed my "personal branding toolkit," which contained a custom portfolio, résumé, cover letter, and Web site. This made me stand out. After several interviews, I landed the marketing job I wanted at EMC Corp (EMC).
One year later, I started experimenting with social media outside of work. I launched my own blog, after reading Tom Peters' famous "Brand Called You" article. I soon realized that my passion was in fact personal branding, as I love marketing, mentoring, and all things social media. What started as a blog became awards, an online TV show, and my own magazine. I was profiled in Fast Company, and the article was read by EMC PR and sent to a vice-president, who then hired me to be the first social media specialist. Long story short, I was hired without even applying for the job.
What is your four-step process for building a powerful brand?
•Discover: In order to really understand who you are and carve out a career path moving forward, investing in self-discovery is critical. In fact, if you don't spend time learning about yourself, your values, personal mission, and unique attributes, you will be at a disadvantage when marketing your brand to others. Start by removing yourself from distractions and ask yourself, "Who am I?" and, "If I could do anything, what would it be?"
•Create: Your personal branding toolkit may consist of a blog, Web site, business card, résumé, reference document, cover letter, portfolio, or even a LinkedIn profile. Each piece has to be consistent with the next and reflect the brand you discovered in Step 1.
•Communicate: Now it's time to use everything you've created to let people know you exist. By attending professional networking events, writing articles for Web sites, and putting on your "personal PR hat," pitch bloggers and traditional journalists to start gaining attention and recognition for the brand you created in Step 2.
•Maintain: As you grow, mature, and accelerate in your career, everything you've created has to be updated and accurately represent the current "brand you." Also, you need to monitor your brand online to ensure all conversations about you are positive and factual. You can do this by using a combination of tools, including a Google Alert for your name.
Can you explain how social media tools can protect workers?
You need to build your brand equity outside of your current job because there is no such thing as job security anymore. To do this, you should become a blogger, reserve your name on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and take ownership of your Google (GOOG) results by constantly monitoring what shows up for your name over time. Each of these social media tools rank high in Google, therefore they can give you the necessary visibility you need to seize opportunities.
Thank you! I love to give my readers new techniques to adapt and succeed, especially in today's turbulent business environment. How can we reach you?
I can be reached at http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com/ or dan.schawbel@gmail.com.
Readers, I would love comments from you. Please send your advice for developing a personal brand.
his articles and videos online at MarshallGoldsmithLibrary.com.

Meat for thought: Latinos y Latinas in the Workplace Insights

2009-01-09T22:39:00.000-06:00

A fellow member of the Hispanic Human Resources Network at linkedin posted this question ' Latinos y Latinas in the Workplace: How Much Progress Have We Made' and the link to the article related to it as published by Diversity Best Practices (July 2008) http://www.diversitybestpractices.com/member/cdo_insights/CDOI-2008-03.pdf

Take a look whenever you have a chance. It has some similarities to another article featured on the SHRM magazine recently on this matter.

What are dreams without hard work? My many thoughts on what each can achieve no matter what.

2009-01-07T13:37:00.000-06:00

Long time ago a dreamer was found to be poetic, now a dreamer has a conglomerate of interpretations. It sounds better to say you are a 'goals oriented' person than to say you are a 'dream catcher', don't you think it is a contradiction that we try to instill creativity and imagination to our kids but then, narrow their career choices to traditionally accepted options?.

Are you under a politically correct career choice that makes you unhappy? do you wonder how wonderful your retirement will be once you get that chance to really do what you want and fulfill that childhood dream?

Here's a brief story. Henry David Thoreau was a man that lived a life dictated by his own beliefs and principles. He lived in the 19th. century and was an anti-slavery advocate that helped escaped slaves on the Underground Railway. He had a very simplistic life , close to nature and himself but with eyes that would make wonderful discoveries. He died at 42 and left quite a legacy.

Don't you wonder what will be left behind you once you are gone? what seeds had you planted? what principles had you defended?

Are you a citizen of your own words that build a better world or a victim of this world?

There are these words by Thoreau that I'd like to share with you "If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.Now put the foundations under them".

What do you see when you look at the mirror? a satisfied individual that leads a life of fulfillment or a victimized one that has no choice but to keep surviving day after day?.

The key is simple: DARE!!!! DARE to explore, to discover, to go on the wonderful journey that means giving yourself and your dreams a chance. It takes work, lots of it. A dream without foundation is like a leaf that flies as per the wind desires.

I like to use the word DREAM with my clients, my family, my friends. I still go to sleep and wonder what surprises life will bring if I keep working hard on my journey.

A dreamer is not a Don Quijote fighting fantasies to conquer but a warrior that creates a vision, designs a strategy, goals that match with it and move on working really hard to get there.

Most of the clients that call me are professional foreigners that have worked really hard to be where they are at but have forgotten what their dreams are or have no faith in their abilities as warriors to pursue their task. Some get shocked by what's different around them , forgetting the value of their own distinctiveness and failing to sell themselves. Cultural shock some may say. I like to see it as a lapse of memory of those times when an adventure and a challenge was all what was needed to fight for something really wanted. Can you switch your mind and look at yourself more kindly, at the world more generously, at the opportunities more openly?

The beginning starts with yourself. Can you dare to explore what makes you different? do you believe it? now just use the words to build it. We all speak differently, we have accents, different backgrounds but a common language is spoken more often on this very global job market. Learn the language and go and sell your uniqueness.

If you have a dream, a strategy, set of goals and work hard, then every experience will build upon your portfolio - if you learn from them - to make you stronger and chances are you can be successful and happier.

NOT 'the end'

It is a new year, so...what now?

2009-01-02T22:20:00.000-06:00

The first few days of the year are promising and full of hope, commitment to our inner wishes and ultimate dreams. Some are very optimistic, others more cautious about what to expect out of a year of a global financial constraint. Whatever way you put it or situation you are at or goal you aim to achieve there are some common principles you can follow that are pretty easy and universal for everyone whether living in a Latin American Country, USA or anywhere else.
1. You know people, don't you? Not hard as we are mostly social animals by nature. right? even if you believe your work and personal life consume most of your days not leaving space for anything else, hey! here's a treat: the people you know and how kind you've been to them, may actually return the favor one day. "What goes around, comes around". Even if they don't - believe that actually some will remember your kindness and pay you back in unexpected and some times unknown ways! - the fact that you plant a seed should be good enough to bring a smile in your face and bring some joy to your life that may actually return to you in a fulfilling way that will eventually reflect both in your performance and potential career development. So, keep networking and building connections that will open doors for you if you...
2. Dare to dream big! If dreaming sounds too wild for you, then set up ambitious goals. Share them with others (unless confidentiality is key for their success!). Once your mind and heart are into something, all your energy and resources move toward your wants until finally your needs are also met on a wonderful and satisfactory career ride.
3. Planning and respecting your own set of priorities are key for your success. There will be always emergencies, urgencies, unpredicted stuff that will make the ride looks like a very hard wall impossible to climb but stick to your plan and set up your boundaries. Do you remember your childhood lessons about saying NO to others when you did not want to do something but were afraid to upset or hurt somebody else? well, what about starting for making yourself happy? Go for it and do not settle for less.
4. Work like a flying ant. Ants are hard and disciplined non-stop workers, but what if you could see from the above what's happening at the bottom and be able to actually look at the big picture. So, work hard with that dream stuck to your heart and get a helicopter ride once in a while to change the perspective. Do not forget the Monkey joke when climbing a tree and make sure those at your feet look at your face and not at your bottom, which ultimately means, be kind to others no matter their hierarchy level or range of importance as per your project needs.
5. Keep a sense of adventure, exploration and fun in your life. I do not think things move smoothly and perfectly synchronized to align to a plan. As I come from a very chaotic region where the unexpected is the rule, I have learned - like most of my fellow pals with either living or working experience in Latin America - to enjoy, embrace and look at the potential opportunities in every unexpected turn that could swift my plan. The result could be amazingly rich in its possibilities and allow you a further sense of growth and a wonderful instinct for opportunities, not counting, your own happiness. The top head of my former employer in Venezuela told me once that the secret of success was having fun at what you did, he must know well as he is currently the head of BP worldwide.

In conclusion, network kindly, dream big, plan and set yourself as a priority, work hard without missing the bigger picture and enjoy the ride!

IT IS YOUR LIFE, YOUR CHOICE, YOUR PRESENT AND ULTIMATELY THE FUTURE YOU DECIDE TO BUILD WITH YOUR MIND, HANDS AND HEART.

So, can you decide to have a happy and full filling 2009? Tomorrow starts now.

What Do Foreign-born Americans Do for Thanksgiving? My reflexion as published on www.americandiversityreport.com

2008-11-07T20:01:00.000-06:00

A first answer for newcomers would be: watching TV, eating turkey and finding great bargains at the Mall. At least, that is how I remember my first Thanksgiving which caught me up me in a holiday that I had no clue about, except the fact that it added a couple of days off to my working calendar. So, that is what I did. I had just moved to the US, my husband was out of town and I had no friends. Therefore, I was at a complete loss. What were those days off all about and why should I celebrate them?
It’s been 8 years since that day. I had 3 kids born in Texas and some very strong roots to my adoptive Country. I got to love the wonderful reasons that Thanksgiving gives me to celebrate. Being new to a Country means that you stopped having your familiar faces and places close to you, which translates to the fact that you’ve got to open yourself to new ones.
My roots came as a professional developing my own extended network and especially with my 3 girls. As a parent and designated driver of their daily activities., roots meant finding a favorite playground, an ice-cream parlor with the right kind of ‘pink sparkles’ and an attendant that knows your name and meeting lots of other warrior parents who care greatly about having happy and entertained kids!. The fact that I go grocery shopping and I get to find people I know or that I go to a fund-raising event of my eldest girl’s elementary school and I happen to know quite a number of people may mean nothing to most. But to me it has created the atmosphere that fills my world and makes me call the beautiful suburb where I live with my family: HOME.
And home is this very International community where people from everywhere shop, sit, have coffee and share our daily lives in a very normal and routine way. I believe most of the foreigners that I’ve learned to appreciate and call my friends have come to discover what a wonderful opportunity Thanksgiving is to share with family and friends. We have risen to the occasion to enjoy ourselves and just be happy and relaxed. However, we may not follow the whole script. Some of us may have Turkey but others may have other fancy international dishes or even barbecue. We just do not stress too much about it. Most of us do not have relatives in town or in the Country to share a meal with but we have our bunch of adoptive relatives – friends – who join to have a great day of fun.
I think my kids will grow understanding and loving the American Thanksgiving holidays but as blended kids they are - whose parents come from somewhere else - they may relate those days to some additional international flavoring with those friends coming from other Countries, speaking different languages, sharing very diverse foreign accents. My girls are used to hearing people talk with accents from my friends on my European ladies’ playgroup, or our acquaintances from diverse places in Latin America . I believe it will certainly open not only their hearts, but their minds, and grow to be very inclusive citizens.
On Thanksgiving we may share our Venezuelan food with black beans, rice, black stewed cooked with lots of species, garlic, onions, butter, brown sugar plus a Coca Cola for the secret blackened touch or somebody may play exotic and bring an Indian meal or a European appetizer. But mostly we get to enjoy the fact of being able to call home where precisely our heart is.
And that is what we foreigners have in common with the Pilgrims. We’ve come with all to settle down on this land and you’ve welcomed us, we are now all part of the same Country that we call home and are thankful for.
So, there you go: Have a Happy Thanksgiving! Feliz Dia de Accion de Gracias!

Is it all right to stop an interviewer?

2008-10-28T12:28:00.001-05:00

One of the things that has always got on my nerves is the ability of some interviewers to take advantage of their position of power to either minimize or disrespect a job candidate.
Some of my clients have mentioned consistently how this kind of situation usually catch them by surprise and while most have done nothing about it, there have been some who've got the tools to stop a misbehaving interviewer. The confusion comes from the lack of clarity between a 'difficult' interviewer who's got the wonderful capability to challenge a candidate beyond his/her comfort zone to prove a competency required for the job Vs. the disrespect that comes from even breaking the law (yeah, you got me right!).
So, I figure I could share with you some basics on how to handle some unusual questions and when to consider stopping an interview altogether.
#1. You are a female candidate. There's a very friendly interviewer talking about his personal stuff (beware right there!) and asking casually whether you have kids or are planning to have kids sometime soon. Your response: Is that a job requirement? Or I did not know that was a job requirement.
#2. You are a foreigner candidate with an accent. The legal question: Are you legally entitled to work in the US for any employer? Vs. the illegal one: Where are you from? For how long have you been living in the US? Every employer needs to know if you meet the basic legal requirement to work for them or not in order to consider you for a position but it is nobody's business your Country of origin or the period you've lived in the US. That could lead to ethnic related discrimination and at the end, would add nothing to the job requirements. However, a question on the languages you can fluently speak and read is a total legal one when it is job related.
#3. You are wearing a religious symbol. The question: Oh, I see you are wearing X, a close friend of mine wears the same, what church do you go to? Though it may look as a very inoffensive question, the fact is that as long as it is not a job related question it can open the door to religion based discrimination.
#4. The position requires lots of traveling as part of its job description. The legal question: Can you travel with very short notice to handle business "X where"? Vs. How are you going to handle the traveling requirements of this position with 4 kids and a cat? Have you got that taken care of? Again, who cares what you do with your personal life and caregivers? It is not a job related question if it lands into personal territory.
#5. You are a middle age candidate and an interviewer asks: “how old are you? Or how much longer do you plan to work before you retire? These questions are illegal based on age discrimination potential. However, an employer is entitled to ask you, for instance, What are your long-term career goals?

In conclusion, as a candidate make sure your potential employer compliances with the law during the interview. The rule of thumb is to ensure the interviewer asks only job related questions framed according to the law. If the interviewer persistently keeps asking illegal questions I encourage you to mention your awareness and their need to comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) which is a federal law that bars employers from discriminating against any person with respect to their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment on the basis of that person’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

The global financial crisis could increase world unemployment ... what if you actually lose your job?

2008-10-20T19:33:00.000-05:00

We are reading and hearing in the news every where about the impact this financial crisis may have in the unemployment. Just by reading some of the latest you can't stop wondering about what to do if you get to be impacted.

ILO the International Labour Organization - says The global financial crisis could increase world unemployment by an estimated 20 million women and men, as per its Director's words today. See below the link that gives you access to the total report. ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said the ILO’s preliminary estimates indicated that the “number of unemployed could rise from 190 million in 2007 to 210 million in late 2009.”
Mr. Somavia added that “the number of working poor living on less than a dollar a day could rise by some 40 million – and those at 2 dollars a day by more than 100 million”.
Mr. Somavia also said that the current crisis would hit hardest such sectors as construction, automotive, tourism, finance, services and real estate. He also noted that the new projections “could prove to be underestimates if the effects of the current economic contraction and looming recession are not quickly confronted”.

http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/Media_and_public_information/Press_releases/lang--en/WCMS_099529/index.htm )

There are some few matters that you should take into account to be ready for a change of this proportions:
1. Have a backup plan, if you lost your job today, what's your backup plan? How long will your savings hold up? The answer should be, "I have enough saved up until I find another job ." Don't carry more credit card debt than you can pay off in three months. Be smart! Find a financial advisor to help you make a transition plan.
2. Design a strategy to land you the next job. Chart a search plan. Volunteering; professional organizations, or clubs. NETWORKING IS KEY!. Stay connected to people and open yourself to make new contacts. Remember to return the favor: What goes around, comes around. Especially today, if your contact is a valued employee and recommends you to his employer.
3. Get active. Make a structured routine of your week. Have weekly goals and start investing your time wisely, so you do not get psychologically impacted. Depression and other psychological reactions can be part of changing jobs. Embrace the opportunity to explore inside yourself on what your strengths, achievements, competencies are and create your brand to market yourself successfully. You may need the gift of a career coach who can counsel you on how to change jobs and be more successful in your search.

Face the job exploration with a sense of adventure. New opportunities can open up for you, after all, you may end up doing what you've always wanted. Keep learning and growing out of the experience and remember you CAN make this change works in your favor!

If you are already thinking or wondering on what your career transition plan could be and how to optimize your job exploration process, please e-mail me at career4changes@live.com to schedule your first free consultation appointment (offer valid only for new clients).

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world"
Mahatma Ghandi

Negotiating Expatriate Packages

2008-10-16T11:22:00.000-05:00

As we live and work in a Global economy, chances are that a professional at some point in a career development plan gets into a potential job assignment offer overseas.
I found the following article written by Lionel Laroche and Catherine Mercer Bing very useful for those looking to make the move (Source: http://itapintl.com/ ). See below:

"Very few people want extended work abroad just for the experience. However, more global companies than ever now expect their talent pool to have international experience as a prerequisite for promotions into the highest levels of the company. Because companies recognize the reticence of employees to go abroad for "possible future consideration", they usually offer some form of financial incentive to those willing to consider relocation for periods of 2 - 3 years.
Expatriate assignments can challenge both the employee and his/her family. Companies recognize this challenge and compensate their expatriates. Expectations for the expatriate incentive package run very high. Individuals may know of other expatriates (who bought a large house or a nice cottage upon their return from a foreign assignment). We know of a senior technician, who was considering a six-month assignment to Mexico, hoping that he could take early retirement upon his return!
Managing employee expectations is the responsibility of Human Resources professionals. Their responsibility is to balance the genuine need for good salary and benefits for individuals, with the financial needs of the corporations. Their responsibility to the individual and the company means designing expatriate assignments to be win-win situations for the company and the individual, both short-term and long-term. Here are some things to expect from expatriate packages.
Direct CompensationSalary increases should take into consideration two factors at the same time -- changes in the cost of living and increases due to changes in experience and/or responsibilities - and equitable compensation plans take both aspects into consideration. In the case of expatriate assignments, both changes can be drastic:
Foreign assignments often include a significant increase in responsibility. For example, managing a plant of outside the home country is a significantly greater responsibility than managing one in the home country, because of the more restricted access to corporate support and of the cultural challenges.
Living in or near any large South American city is likely to be much more expensive than in a smaller or outlying city.Insightful Human Resources professionals plan to give expatriates two separate figures, one for the change in cost of living and one for the change in responsibilities. This simplifies expatriate package negotiations in several respects:
It improves consistency when a corporation sends people to different countries with widely different costs of living and helps prevent comments like: "Maria went to Buenos Aires two years ago and her salary was doubled. Why is mine increasing only by 20%?"
It also helps prepare expatriates for their return to the home country. Companies find it easier to remove the adjustment made for the change in cost of living if it is explicitly separated from the salary than if it is part of one's salary. This helps prevent expatriates from feeling demoted upon their return to the home country because their salary was decreased significantly.Note that cost of living adjustments should be based on the expatriate life style rather than the life style of locals. For example, expatriates living in some developing countries find that food and lodging is relatively inexpensive, while international telephone charges are very high. Given the amount of money that most expatriates spend on telephone, this may make the new place less affordable after all.
BenefitsBecause of their very different situations and needs, the benefits offered to expatriates generally go beyond the benefits offered to other employees. Many companies offer benefits in the areas of taxation, moving, accommodations, visa, immigration, and language training. Other benefits that are less commonly offered can significantly ease expatriate package negotiations:
Cross-cultural training helps manage expatriates' expectations. By learning more about their future lives, they can understand better what will be important to them in their assigned destination. They can also calibrate their expectations versus the experience of other expatriates in that destination. For example, some expatriates are asking to live in very large houses in cities where such accommodations simply do not exist. On the professional side, they may expect to achieve objectives that may be essentially unrealistic in their new context; in this case, they may expect rewards that may never come.
Family benefits: It is critical to keep in mind the fact that the whole family is affected, and particularly the spouse. Family adjustment and lifestyle issues are the leading causes of early return .Support and financial help in finding adequate schooling for the expatriate's children is often a prerequisite for the family to accept the assignment. In the case of dual-career families, recognition for the spouse's efforts can come in several forms:
Helping the spouse obtain a work visa and a job.
Helping him/her find suitable unpaid activities (studies, volunteer work in non-profit associations, or hobbies) when local immigration laws preventing him/her from receiving a salary. This can be done through dedicated career counseling.
Compensating the spouse for his/her loss of income.
Career counseling: Providing career coaching / mentoring to them throughout their assignment, and particularly during the first and last six months of their assignment, and after they return to the home office helps them ensure that both they and the organization reap the benefits of their newly-acquired experience. It also helps manage their expectations for their subsequent assignments - some expatriates come back to their home country hoping that they will hold far more senior positions than they should realistically hope for.
Repatriation training: Expatriate families and employees benefit from repatriation training to help readjust to living in the home country and returning to the original work environment. Length of the training often depends on the length of the assignment and the ages of the children.
Reassignment: If the leading motivator of the expatriate is the long-term career aspect, the company needs to provide a challenging assignment upon return to the home office or shortly thereafter. If this is not feasible, communication about future plans for such an assignment and the timing needs to come from a mentor or senior manager or the company risks losing its entire investment to turnover of returning expatriates.One size does not fit all expatriate packages. A young, single engineer who is going to work on an oil extraction platform in Indonesia has very different expectations and needs compared with a senior, married-with-teenage-children manager who is going to start and lead a plant in Spain. A significant degree of flexibility should be provided to both to be able to design packages that suit their own needs within a given budget - just like flexible health benefit plans.
Seeking external adviceIn many cases, neither the expatriate nor the HR manager has gone through an expatriate assignment. As a result, their understanding of what the expatriate and his/her family will need in the assigned destination may be significantly off. Seeking informal advice from other expatriates or obtaining formal advice from consulting firms specialized in setting up expatriate packages may help ensure that the most important needs of prospective expatriates are addressed. "

For the curious mind: What is Appreciative Inquiry? and what is an Appreciative Coach? (me!)

2008-10-15T22:45:00.000-05:00

I get asked sometimes what is what I mean with being an 'Appreciative Career Coach' and once people get the notion that what I do comes from Appreciative Inquiry, then the follow up question about what this is arises.
I am going to try to summarize it based on what I've learned myself and others have written about it either in books or internet sites.
Let's start by saying that Appreciative Inquiry is a positive approach to change. It is about the power of the question. It was created in the Academia world - Case Weatherhead School of Management -I'll share with you a little tiny piece of what its 'founder' has shared on this regard:
“It all starts with Inquiry…the questions we ask, the things we focus on, the topics that we choose determine what we find. What we find becomes the data and the story out of which we dialogue about and envision the future. And so, the seeds of change are implicit in the very first question we ask.”
Cooperrider, 1995

So, basically, what have you done that's worked out really well for you? Let's do more of that!" - how to discover things that have been successful -- What have you done that's worked out really well for you?
Instead of discovering what the client - you - is "doing wrong" and telling them - again you- how to do it right, my process as an Appreciative Career coach becomes to discover what is what you are doing right (what your particular talents are), reminding you that those things are enjoyable, and suggesting that you do more of that.
Does it make more sense now?
OUR IMAGE OF THE FUTURE DRIVES OUR ACTION! or as Peter Drucker put it: The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Not falling too much more into the details of how it works I can tell you that there are very solid examples of AI success stories around the world. I'll share the one that is the closest to my heart as I worked at the particular Business Unit in which the story took place where I learned a lot about the AI application and potential for success. (BP case: http://aradford.co.uk/images/stories/ODJournalFall2007_DG_and_AR.pdf ).

Now, go, take a look and if wanting to open an inquiry about your career that is what I am here for. My offer for you is a free introductory complimentary session either face-to-face , over the phone or by Skype .
Enjoy the ride and go and start creating that future you want.

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it".
(Goethe)

Online Technologies and Their Impact on Recruitment Strategies—Using Social Networking Web Sites to Attract Talent

2008-10-14T20:01:00.001-05:00

Are you wondering if the time you spent in doing networking either face-to-face or virtually (e.g. linkedin anyone?) is well spent or wasted? Think again!

See below what the SHRM - Society for Human Resource Management - just published on a study they just did on this regard.

"Since 2006, there has been a 17 percent increase in human resource professionals who use social networking sites as recruiting, resumé verification, and applicant screening tools at least occasionally, according to a survey released today by the world’s largest human resources organization. And what they find can be damaging to an applicant’s hiring prospects.
The overview of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey, Online Technologies and Their Impact on Recruitment Strategies—Using Social Networking Web Sites to Attract Talent, showed organizations still recruit primarily through national online job boards (48 percent), but 3 percent of human resource professionals make social networking sites their primary recruiting source.
“Social networking sites will change forever how human resource professionals recruit new employees, check for corporate culture fit, and verify resumé accuracy,” said China Gorman, acting president and CEO of SHRM. “HR professionals need to use caution when they see potential inaccuracies on social networking profiles, and employees should be wary of how they portray themselves online. SHRM’s survey shows that negative information contained in profiles has more of an impact on hiring decisions than positive information.”
Key findings in responses from nearly 600 HR professionals:
• Negative information on an applicant’s social networking profile, such as personal views or values contradictory to the hiring organization, negative or slanderous discussions of current or former employers, friends, or co-workers, and excessive alcohol use, have a greater impact on hiring decisions than positive information.
• Social networking sites were most effective (“somewhat” or “very effective”) in recruiting for exempt/non-management (61 percent) and middle management (64 percent) positions.
• The top reasons for using social networking sites for contact and recruitment were to recruit passive applicants who might not otherwise apply (69 percent), followed by the ability to target applicants with specific job levels (40 percent) and skill sets (38 percent).
• Organizations who don’t use social networking sites to contact and recruit applicants cited a lack of staff time to add this recruiting method (49 percent), and questions about credibility of information from those sites (42 percent)."

In addition to this here is some further data related to the Recruiting Resources primarily used when Recruiting Job Candidates:
1. National Online Job Boards (e.g. Career Builder, Hot Jobs...) - 48%
2. Employee Referrals - 43%
3. Career Section of organization's website - 35%
4. Internal Job Postings - 16%
6. Niche Online Job Boards -13%
7. Print Advertising - 12%
8. Job Fairs - 8%
9. On Campus College Recruitment - 8%
10. Regional online Job Boards -5%
11. Direct Hire Agencies (excluding temp) - 5%
12. Informal networking - 3%
13. Temporary Agencies - 3%
14. Social networking (e.g. My Space, Facebook...) - 3%
etc.

This study gives YOU as either passive or active job hunters good ideas in how to build your own brand more efficiently in order to market it more successfully to potential hiring managers.
For instance, on how your profile on a Social networking site influences - or not - their hiring decision more than 50% would be somewhat more likely to hire the individual if involved in professional societies or organizations or in volunteer or civic groups. And 46% would do the same if the information on the applicant's profile page supports that provided on the applicant's resume. Out of all the data they provide the conclusion on this is: "Negative information has a greater influence on hiring decisions, than positive information".
Also, the number one reason social networking sites are used is to recruit passive applicants who might not otherwise apply or be contacted by an organization.

Isn't this great meat for thought? Now if you are looking to find your next ideal job this is a good opportunity for you to sit and review your job hunting strategy. How are you investing your time? what's your niche? have you built a brand? have you identified your target in the job market?
Go now and google your name and see what's out there? Nothing? Time too work...go ahead and start building your virtual brand.
And whatever Brand you define to build... make it real and authentic.
"To grow is to go beyond what you are today.
Stand up as yourself. Do not imitate.
Do not pretend to have achieved your goal, and do not try to cut corners.
Just try to grow"
Svami Prajnanpad (1863-1902) - a Hindu philosopher.

Are you already in the land of opportunity? How truly inclusive are you?

2008-10-13T12:20:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite tales is the Peacock in the Land of Penguins which describes the following...
"The land of opportunity is more than a place.
It is a state of mind.
It is where we live and work.
When we choose to see with new eyes,
Live from our hearts,
Allow ourselves and others,
To be who we truly are...
OURSELVES!"

Watch the video of the story as written by BJ Gallagher and Warren H. Schmidt at:
http://www.perrythepeacock.com/

Then, ask yourself, how inclusive do you think you are at work? in your community? in your family? with your kids' friends? Do you see yourself consistently as a penguin or as a peacock?

There is another video that is a 'classic'. It is 'A Class Divided'. It's a classic documentary about a school teacher who in 1968 taught her students a powerful lesson about discrimination by setting the environment where they treated each other differently based on the color of their eyes. The first time she did it was the day after Martin Luther King was killed. The story makes a nice connection to the Pygmalion Effect - we hold different expectations for people depending on all kinds of differences
The first 20 minutes compiles the actual experience. What comes later is a conversation with the kids once they were grown ups.
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Power-of-Prejudice-A-Class-Divided

Next time you wake up with your 'penguin suit' remember what it is like the times you have decided to wear the peacock one and ultimately, dare to be yourself! Dare to do your best and try the thing that you enjoy and want to do in your career and ultimately in life!
Have a blast today and every day!

Say Hola!

2008-10-13T00:05:00.000-05:00

Hola,
I am sharing the best of a couple of articles I have found that talk about the Latino or Hispanic representation in the US.
One - Say Hola to the Majority Minority - was published on the HR Magazine by Susan J. Wells (SHRM -Sept.2008) and it relates to the demographic trends in the US.
Actual data shows that the Hispanic population represents 14% of the general population Vs. 29% in 2050. Just to put it in perspective, "The last time a demographic change of this magnitude occurred was in the second half of the 20th century, when, after World War II, women entered the labor market...".
Can you imagine? and that is not all, "Hispanic buying power has risen from $212 billion in 1990 to $862 billion in 2007, representing 307 percent growth over that time. The combined buying power of all non-Hispanics in the United States grew 125 percent during the period".
As per the Major Occupations Among U.S. Hispanics 24.1% belongs to Service, 21.1% to Sales and office, 19.4% to Natural Resources, construction and maintenance and 17.8% to Management, professional and related.

And that is how now I can connect this article to another one published at a different source. Read it and do the math.

Bilingual Demand: The Search for Spanish-Speaking Workers by Elaine RigoliOct (as published by www.ere.net)
Are you adding “se habla español” to your job descriptions for the remainder of 2007 and 2008? If you’re like half of all hiring managers who participated in a new survey, the answer is a resounding “claro que si!”
A recent survey of 2,417 U.S. hiring managers and human resource professionals suggests that Spanish-speaking job candidates will be in especially high demand by employers within the next year.
The survey was conducted by empleosCB.com, which is focused on the online job search for the Hispanic community. It found that 48% of hiring managers are hiring Spanish-speaking job candidates in 2007 and 2008.
When asked which segment of diverse workers they will be looking to hire, a good number say they plan to target Hispanic workers more aggressively in 2007 and 2008.
“With the Hispanic population growing in number and buying power, nearly three-in-ten hiring managers say they are placing a greater emphasis this year and on into next year on finding employees who can relate to this target audience,” says Jesse Caballero, senior career advisor for empleosCB.com.
Who’s Hiring?
The desire to add bilingual candidates is certainly evident in countless industries and across many departments.
According to Manuel Boado, CEO of New York-based search firm Spanusa, financial institutions, private banks that have a presence in Latin America, the insurance industry, and every company that is in consumer products is interested in Spanish-speaking professionals.
Also, in education, school districts are trying to attract more bilingual teachers.
For example, the West Valley City, Utah, school district hired 10 teachers from Mexico as part of an agreement between Utah and the Mexican Ministry of Education.
Under Utah’s visiting teacher program, these teachers receive salary and benefits commensurate with Utah teachers, and they can work legally in “high-need” public schools for up to three years.
(...)
Bilingual Job Fairs
Sponsored by UBS, participating companies at the CareerJournal event include Smith Barney, Eli Lilly, Fitch Rating, Coventry Healthcare, Target, and T-Mobile, among others.
On November 1, a bilingual job fair at the Charlotte Merchandise Mart in Charlotte, North Carolina, will connect employers looking for qualified workers and candidates who can speak both Spanish and English.
This is the second bilingual job fair in the area, and event coordinator Mylene Duffy says companies want to offer their products and services to the community but are lacking enough Spanish-speaking workers.
When you do fill enough positions with the sought-after bilingual candidates, LatPro.com , a niche job board for bilingual professionals, has some advice for companies.
The job board advises that hiring bilingual HR personnel is a “huge benefit” when communicating important or technical information with workers who primarily speak Spanish.
---------------
Hasta la vista.

"Bricks are there for a reason..."

2008-10-10T16:47:00.000-05:00

Wouldn’t you like for somebody to tell you when you are frustrated or upset that every thing is going to be all right no matter what?
Well, I am going to borrow a beautiful phrase by Randy Pausch from his Last Lecture: “the bricks are there for a reason. They are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something”.
You can pretty much achieve what you want, once you have clarity on your goals, work really hard by focusing your energy and daring to remember and believe in your dreams.
Some people imagine that a career coach has the power to make miracles, but as the miracle power resides in you, I can be only a facilitator of a process that allows you to get to that tangible dream.
First, I believe in challenges, tests, walls and high mountains to be climbed on and lots of wonderful growing opportunities to lead you to achieve your full potential.
Second, if you’ve got the ‘ganas’, the ‘desire’, the ‘passion’ to keep going towards that dream, then it is just a matter of getting started.
Yes, you may have moved to a new Country and struggled a bit in how to relate to your working environment in order to succeed, but if you take action on it and step back to realize that the luggage you have is actually full of tools for you to implement in that new environment and allow yourself space to grow out of your comfort zone, wouldn't you find out, then that the opportunity is a complete win-win for your future?
Yes, you may 'hate' your current job and have a difficult supervisor. Isn't it there an opportunity to learn how to deal with a challenging situation? a space for negotiation and strong networking to overcome that 'job' to find a career that you want to grow into?
Yes, you may be balancing the act between your family and multiple business arrangements. Is there the window opportunity to sit and prioritize? to look at the very basic tools of time management between the important things and the urgent ones?
Yes, you may be shy and not too kind to go and expose yourself into social professional networking. But, can you see the benefit of exploring, discovering, defining and designing your own brand based on your talents and capabilities that you can easily expose to others in such networking opportunities?
Yes, ‘you know people’, then wouldn’t it be great that you know how to maximize those relationships you already have as a powerful portfolio of resources to help you achieving your goals?
All of this is possible and much achievable when you hire a Career Coach. So as you see, I can facilitate a journey that may start on your resume (or not) but doesn't end until you believe in your inner power, open up your mind for new(or forgotten) effective tools and have confidence in beginning to channel your hard work towards a path that produce the wanted results.
Switch your mind for a minute and think of all the benefits you may achieve once you decide you have what it takes to move on to have the career of a lifetime and not just a job to make a living.
Change is going to be part of your life, anyway. Wouldn’t it be best that you take charge of it?

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future” John F. Kennedy

What Ike taught me about embracing Diversity (as published at http://www.americandiversityreport.com/)

2008-09-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

I live in the United Nations, well, to be more accurate I live in a suburb that looks very much like the United Nations located Southwest of Houston which I have learned to embrace and love.
Right the days before Ike strike and the day after it hit, you could tell that ethnicities and national origins were totally out of our minds when it came to the sense of helping and supporting each other and our kids to feel safe.
I took this picture right after Ike was gone and all of our American kids were cleaning up the leaves and branches left behind by the winds. It is an image as the real richness of this wonderful Country I will always remember. The so called ‘Latinos’, ‘Europeans’ and ‘Texans’ were all working together as just good neighbors would do. I can tell they are growing to be part of a new generation, one that completely disregard anything related to race or the biases surrounding that concept.
Full inclusiveness totally gets your heart with the realization that we all are human beings with pretty much the same needs and goals.
When I started my business of career coaching, my thought was about helping professional immigrants that struggle to fully succeed in the labor culture of this Country but on my subconscious I was focusing on my own ethnicity – Latinos. However, as time has been moving by and I have extended my own network and relationships as part of my marketing side, I’ve discovered how biased I had been by not understanding that the working culture in the US is not as easy for anyone coming to this country, regardless of their ethnicity or continent of origin.
I am an immigrant myself from Venezuela. I have been a professional whose international exposure as a HR Consultant for a major oil company empowered her to create and focus her practice in Diversity and inclusion matters related to the professional success of her clients.
On my first year in the US, though I'd been previously exposed to working in a global working environment and I’d lived previously in the US as a student, I felt 'culturally blind' not understanding the fact that I was not just a person but a category that happened to be part of two minority groups - Latino and women -. It took a few punches to my self-esteem to discover that there was nothing wrong with me but the fact that as a new comer in a new world I just needed to understand how to relate, work and sell my ideas effectively in a foreign corporate environment. By then, I was part of a bunch of foreigners under the same circumstances supporting each other to be successful and learning the importance of having and extended and globally effective professional network.
The learning curve took us a while and now that I see it, I understand how I could have benefited myself from a mentor or career coaching services. Therefore, life had it that people started referring their colleagues and friends to me to help them to get out of the hole some of them saw themselves into for not being able to move ahead on their career development or career moves as planned which has become my inspiration to open my business, so they overcome their fears or doubts related to their own chances to succeed in this international and very competitive corporate world. And then, I see my own neighborhood stretching our minds and hearts to realize how easy it would be that what we do in our community life, we manage in our working environment.
The assumption that everyone is as best as they are completely switches your mind towards an open and generous listening to what the other side has to tell and how you can incorporate or blend what you know towards a richer outcome.
I think the boom of all Cross-Cultural Career Coaching businesses will last maybe just our generation as the new one will be a global, open, unbiased generation used to and welcoming to all sort of ideas and dynamics. I can tell by the way the interactions so naturally occur and kids deal with each other and their commonness far more easily than their presumed differences.
It is us, the parents, the workers, the immigrants, the neighbors, the nationals that get pushed everyday out of our comfort zones to add to this mix. In the meantime, we just get along and do our best to understand or at least be open to an understanding of what others have to bring to the table. Ask yourself, am I transferring my good neighbor skills to my professional ones at work? I wonder what the answer would be, but I hope you get the picture on your mind of all the people that right now in Texas are re-building the disaster zone with the unique sense of a community building a better future together.

You CAN make changes...career4change is up to you

2008-09-25T20:13:00.000-05:00

Quite a numbers of years ago I remember a particular Leadership training I was part of given by an International consultant, in which the facilitator emphasized the importance of our words in defining ourselves to others, the message was that we are what we say, we are our words. Though reluctant and resistant to that definition of my own essence, after all these years and experience working with so many people at all levels, I have come to my senses that we become what our own thoughts believe we are; therefore, we come to believe that we live and exist in a little box which we limit by our own words.
How many times have I heard "there's just no way", "it's such a long shot", "nobody has done it before", "do not even bother", "you are overly optimistic"? and at every single time I have defeated all the biases and learned from the lessons provided by every turn and every door that either gets open to a wonderful opportunity or shut on my face to invite me to move towards a path otherwise I wouldn't have walked on.
If you Google or check on entrepreneurs' biographies or just google inside your own self what make people take risks, you'll see that at every single time CHANGE was part of it. Change happens to all but some decide to make changes for themselves and be the creators of their own paths. You are literally 'the architect of your own Universe", you decide your every day and your future. Yes, you are your words when they tell you that you CAN change your career path, you CAN change your own self perception of what your true professional net value is, you CAN dare to invest in that asset that is your happiness of working on what you want and not just to make a living.
I am an immigrant myself to this Country as I looked for an opportunity to be transferred and fulfill a professional dream of increasing my global experience. I did not get the transfer by luck, I actually pushed for it and did lots of tiny steps until the moment and the opportunity matched and it landed. Then, when my first job in Houston was set to disappear, I did not get an offer to go somewhere else, but again networked and looked for the job I thought was my perfect match and got it. Two separate career events that could seem very 'lucky' but that were ultimately the result of those apparent small actions that allowed me to CHANGE my career according to my own aspirations.
All of us can provide many examples of that but many have felt stuck at one moment or another. That is why I made the decision of getting involved and officially opened my business as an Appreciative Career Coach because even if all of us are different we all have something in common: CHANGE HAPPENS AND WE CAN MAKE CHANGES.