Working World

I recently saw an article by Richard Nelson Bolles, author of a particularly popular book entitled What Color is Your Parachute?  This book on careers was one of those books, much like Dick Irish’s Go Hire Yourself an Employer, that helped shape the career paths of many.  Mark and I hope Working World will have that far reaching impact.  The authors of these books did not only provide useful resources and advice, they offered a philosophical approach for making your mark on the world. 

So it was a delight to see Mr. Bolles’ article “The Informational Interview: How It Can Help You Get a Job In Tough Times” that appeared in the January 1, 2009 issue of Bottom Line Personal. 

One point he underscored was to send thank-you notes the same day as the interview.  Here is his advice:

Ask the person you interviewed for his/her business card.  Then send an e-mail so that the person you talked to has a prompt response from you.  Also send a hand-written note to arrive a day or two later.  Do this for any interview you have.  Many job seekers ignore this very simple advice.  Following it will help you stand out from the crowd.

His advice is well-taken.  A carefully crafted thank-you note is another opportunity to showcase your communications skills.  It shows you paid attention.  I received the following handwritten card after an information interview with several people.  You can be sure I will remember the young woman who wrote it.

Dear Sherry,

Thank you for setting aside time to meet with me — and others — this afternoon.  It was so very useful to know where to look for some of that data.  I’ve had great fun with this thesis topic, and am still clarifying.  My hope is that I can produce something that is truly useful for promoting understanding of public diplomacy — we shall see!  After I contact Michelle and Sherri, I will probably drop you a line via email.  This time I wanted to send a real card — something a bit more concrete to show my appreciation for the work that you do so well: encouraging individuals to make a difference through direct interaction.

Best Regards

I just ran across a step-by-step guide from Heather Huhman at the Examiner.com on finding work abroad. She offers some useful and practical stuff, not the least of which is a nice list of websites at the end to help you search for actual jobs and internships. Huhman’s first step in the process is an important one:

Ask yourself why you want to go abroad.

This is a subject Sherry and I tackle in Working World. In our view, pursuing an international career is not always synonymous with working abroad. Just because a job sends you abroad doesn’t necessarily mean it is the best for building your international career. In the same way, even though a job doesn’t have an international travel component, it might still be a beneficial position for building your international career.

Let me clarify that, by making this point, I’m certainly not trying to deny these realities:

1) that most internationally-oriented positions (whether in the U.S. or abroad) require (or at least greatly value) international experience;

2) that going abroad without a set strategic plan can still be extremely valuable for your career (I went to China with zero strategery, and the experience has been infinitely useful in my career, in many ways); and

3) that being young and fresh out of college is an ideal time to gain that international experience and maybe go ahead and do that program in a random country even though it doesn’t make any sense to your parents.

All of these things are definitely true. I just agree with Huhman that it’s never a bad thing to reflect on why you want to go abroad. If you’re able to pin down exactly how the experience will help you in your future career, that’s great. If all you’re able to say is that it sounds challenging and you don’t have anything else to do anyway…well, that works too.

I have just come across a new book written by a respected colleague that I would like to share with our readers.  Here is the author’s description:

You may be familiar with my book Search: Winning Strategies to Get Your Next Job in the Nonprofit World, which I wrote to help people find a great job at a nonprofit organization. It draws on my experience as a search consultant who helps nonprofits recruit talented people for key leadership positions.

Given the current economic climate, where the competition for good jobs will be more intense, I am lowering the price of the book by about 50 percent. From now to January 31, the book can be purchased at my website for $9.95, which includes shipping. That’s about 50% below the regular price plus normal shipping fees.

So if you – or somebody you know – needs tips to:

• Put together a quick, step-by-step action plan to guide an effective search
• Create a network of people who will help you find openings that don’t get widely advertised
• Produce a resume that’s not the standard, dull list of job duties
• Write a cover letter that makes the reader say “I want to interview you — pronto!”
• Make a great impression at the interview.

I hope you’ll consider buying Search at this special price.

Reviewers have said the book is “marvelously practical and informative,” “mercifully short – a small gem that will tell you quickly what you need to know,” and “a pleasure to read.” I hope you will agree.

This special $9.95 price is available only until January 31, so please purchase a copy now for yourself or for a friend who’s ready for a new opportunity.

The only way to get Search: Winning Strategies to Get Your Next Job in the Nonprofit World at this special price is to purchase it at my website.

To order now and save 50%, please click here.

Best wishes for a great 2009.

Larry Slesinger, Founder and CEO

In the wake of discussions here and here about networking, especially about how introverts or those who generally have a difficult time with networking events might make the most of them, I found it interesting that the Notre Dame Club of Washington Career Night that I attended last night (both to shill Working World and to make connections with fellow Domers) employed an ice breaker activity to ease participants in to the night and hopefully get them talking more easily.  It was a Career Night Scavenger Hunt:

How to Play:
1. Talk to other people in the room and ask which of the statements in the boxes below apply to them.
2. If a statement applies, have the person write his/her name in the box.
3. Each person can sign only one box on your sheet.
4. Talk to as many people as possible and fill up your sheet.

Statements in the boxes included: “Has been to Africa;” “Is a native of Washington, DC (or has lived here for ten or more years);” “Watched every football game this season;” etc. I give the organizers props for their creativity, but I don’t know how effective the ice breaker was—for me, anyway. While some others seemed to be enjoying it, I once again found myself talking to the one guy in the room that I already knew.

But an activity later on proved much more effective for mingling and natural conversation, I thought. The room had 15+ tables set up in it, each of which was designated for a particular career field: international relations, government, consulting, engineering, etc. Table speakers (of which I was one) went to the table of their particular expertise or field, and others interested in that particular field then approached that table and conversations ensued. It was far easier in this situation to strike up conversations with folks, mainly because I already knew everyone mingling around the IR table had something in common with me and similar interests. The ice breaker was well-intentioned, but ultimately felt forced and stilted. The facilitated pockets of conversation based on field of interest, while also forced to some degree, ultimately felt much more natural, as our interactions were based mainly on mutually held passions.

As a follow up to my last post on the occasional awkwardness of networking, a reader passed on this article: 12 tips to help shy people increase their “networking mojo” (Austin Powers references: often good; here: makes me cringe). As in the Jibber Jobber post I referenced earlier, Meridith Levinson also cites the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi. I’ve never heard of either Ferrazzi or his book until now, but they seem to be if not trusted then at least oft-cited resources in the networking world. The first thing that caught my attention, though, struck me as a bit odd:

Humans are hard-wired as communal, tribal animals, so the shy person isn’t shy by nature,” says Ferrazzi. “They are shy by design. Something happened to them to make them want to recoil.”

Sometimes, when an introvert hears that he’s not inherently a loner, that humans are innately social creatures, the realization helps him emerge from his shell of shyness, he says.

I’m not really sure how this is at all constructive. Sure, networking is important for all professionals and, yes, shy people can do well to find strategies to help them overcome their shyness (hence the point of this article, I thought). But to tell a shy person that the best way to get over their shyness is to finally come to the realization that no one is really shy so stop whining? Is that a serious piece of advice? That’s like telling a Bengals fan (of which I am one) that everyone is inherently a Giants fan and the best way to get over rooting for a crappy team is to realize that, innately, I am a Giants fan. Or, perhaps, like telling a gay person that everyone is inherently straight and that the best way to get over not being able to marry your partner is just to realize that, innately, you are straight.

Maybe Ferrazzi has some sort of concrete anthropological evidence in his book to back up this assertion. And I suppose I shouldn’t be going after him after reading just one out of context quote. But the quote did indeed strike me as particularly silly and, in a way, brought to boil a lingering, festering frustration I have with a lot of career advice articles and blog posts out there: they always try to sum every subject up with a series of tidy numbered bullets. 12 strategies for overcoming shyness, 5 ways to beat the economic downturn, 37 steps to a new you. The problem with the kind of column Levinson gives us here is it intimates two falsehoods: that everything about this topic can be boiled down into a set of 5 or 12 or 37 simple parts, and that the author knows for a fact that these 5 or 12 or 37 parts are everything that needs to be said about this particular career development topic, and you the reader didn’t know that, which is why the author is passing on his or her divinely-inspired wisdom for you to digest, then promptly enact with great success in the real world!

But things don’t boil down into numbered sets and whatever any one writer has to say about any one subject is never the last word. There are always other opinions and angles to be considered, other aspects to be learned. Sherry and I have always tried to stray away from giving this kind of tidy, no-further-argument-needed advice. We would much rather encourage a true conversation about issues in career development than propagate shallow, efficient tid-bits to make everyone feel better about themselves.

Levinson’s article has its redeeming points and is possibly worth a scan. But beware the condescension that drips from a good chunk of it (”…if they just possessed more self-confidence and weren’t such self-conscious wallflowers…” and “…it is possible for shrinking violets and shy guys to master the skill of networking…”). What Levinson doesn’t seem to realize is that networkers can’t be lumped into two distinct and separate categories, as she wants to do: those who can (like, presumably, her) and those who lack all self-confidence and fear rejection and feel unworthy and, ultimately, can’t. There are many different types of networkers, all of whom have confidence and feel they are worthy: those who excelled in it in one field but may be switching to a new field and are having difficulty finding traction there; those who are not shy in some situations but find difficulty getting their footing in a business situation; those who are introverts by nature (yes, I would say some of us are shy inherently, not because something “happened” to us); those who are excellent networkers in a variety of situations. It seems it would be far more prudent and useful to recognize this fact and then begin an actual conversation on networking that could examine all sides and all types, rather than generously giving to us poor, fearful, confidence-lacking have-nots the 12 steps we need to follow in order to become the haves.