My Advice for College Grads

In the next few weeks we will be hearing a lot about commencement speeches. Some of these will be great, some boring and some mind-blowing. Some colleges will pay a fortune to bring in some heavy hitters like Bill Clinton or Condolezza Rice. Unfortunately not everyone gets to hear speakers such as Bill Clinton. Some get stuck with someone marginal they don’t even remember. It’s OK! You don’t want to pay the tuition bill for the college that hires a former president to speak at commencement.

Today’s post isn’t about aspirational stories or funny anecdotes about conversations with Vladimir Putin; instead I want to give you some solid advice on the next endeavor in your life: getting a job, keeping a job and maybe even liking that job.

I have spent almost 10 years of my life working in the corporate world on both sides, so I think I have something relevant to tell you. Here goes:

Job search tips:

1. Resumes are important – double and triple check grammar and spelling. I see grammar, spelling and formatting errors across all age groups, these mistakes chip away at your candidacy before you’ve even had a chance to open your mouth.

2. Cast a wide net – you are just starting out in your career so you can and should explore different jobs, different locations, and different companies. Consider all opportunities.

3. Don’t take the advice you receive too seriously. Most people give advice based on their own life experience. This may or may not be relevant to you depending on how close your life is now to someone’s when they were your age 30 years ago. You should listen but take advice with a grain of salt.

4. Interview advice – This is simple but I feel like I have to reiterate the basics: show up on-time, turn off your phone (I can still hear it vibrate), say “please” and “thank you,” don’t interrupt someone who is speaking, dress for the occasion, send a thank you note or email.

5. Some work history is better than no work history – is it September and you are still looking for a job? Get a job. Any job. Don’t laugh at the Starbucks barista, she is building experience and making money. Trust me, the point in time where you become the unemployed loser sitting in your parents basement is much sooner than you think.

Career and workplace advice:

1. It’s OK to take a job you are less than enthusiastic about….really you won’t find your passion at your first, second or third job, at this point you need to take a job (preferably in the professional field of your choice) that gives you experience and pays you money.

2. Since I brought up the “P” word, check out these two great posts from Laurie Ruettimann and Lance Haun about work passion…they pretty much sum up my views on finding your passion.

3. Working at a crappy job builds character – character is good. It is good to get crappy jobs out of the way at a young age. When people are screaming at you on the phone it won’t seem like that is true but trust me this is better now instead of later. It is much better to be at a miserable job when you only need to worry about feeding yourself and not an entire family. The crappy job you put up with now will give you the perspective and experience to see the good opportunities when they come along.

4. Don’t be annoyed if someone refers to you as the ”kid” or mentions that you are the youngest person on the team. At some point you won’t be the youngest person on the team anymore…this will make you sad.

5. What you were taught in school is not always how things play out in real life. The best practices you read about in your text books are expensive. Contribute realistic ideas that fit the organization (financial, culture and people) that you work for.

6. Do not compromise your ethics or morals.

7. Live below your means – this is common sense right? Unfortunately it is so common that people ignore it. Do you have a hard time thinking thirty years into the future? When 10, 15, 20% of your paycheck is going toward a goal 30 years in the future it is tempting to spend that money on your current reality. Don’t buy into that. Money = Freedom. Freedom = the opportunity to go into business for yourself, the opportunity to take a real vacation and disconnect, the opportunity to educate yourself and much more. Money = Freedom

8. No one expects you to know everything. I’m ashamed it took me a minute to learn this one; it actually took me quite a few frustrated hours and some candid advice before I finally stopped giving a crap and started asking questions. Don’t make my mistake.

9. Grit is good. There is a wealth of research material (and a great TedX talk) about grit. This is the ability to diligently persist until things are accomplished, a box is checked or the product has shipped. This is one of the most important skills you can develop. You don’t need to be the smartest or the most connected but if you can get things done, you shine. The people who get things done are the organizational linchpin. You want to be a linchpin.

What advice would you give to this year’s college graduates? I would love to hear it! Tell me in the comments.

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Melissa Fairman in Career Leave a comment

Who knew? Middle managers have value

There are few things more ridiculed in corporate culture then the middle manager. Executives usually get their fair share of hate but they also get some glorification as “kings of industry” or job creators. We rarely see the middle manager treated in such glorious fashion.

Once a position aspired to, the middle manager has fallen by the wayside and is now thought of as a relic of the past. There is an easy explanation for that: innovations in technology has enabled businesses to remove entire layers of middle management and individual contributors. It seems that in our never ending quest for greater efficiency and lean organizations we’ve also forgotten the value of good middle managers as anything other than task managers.

A recent study detailed in Harvard Business Review blogs, describes the importance of middle managers as companies undergo major change efforts:

“I recently conducted a study of 56 randomly selected companies involved in major change and innovation efforts in the high-tech, retail, pharmaceutical, banking, automotive, insurance, energy, non-profit, and health care industries. Nearly 68% of these large-scale change and innovative efforts failed…The result was startling: Aside from the role of the senior executives, the most important determinant of success was the role of MLMs [Mid-Level Managers, emphasis added]. In the successful initiatives, MLMs served as levers of change, influencing those above and below them in the corporate hierarchy.”

The study found three things were important to the success of the change initiative from the perspective of the MLM, to paraphrase:

Alignment – Managers goals were aligned with the change initiative

Authorship – the best companies put together cross functional teams of middle managers and used those teams to create initiatives aligned with organizational goals

Actions- Managers put into place initiatives and are held accountable for the results.

This is all good information but it is also common sense. When you are trying to change an organization why wouldn’t you involve your middle managers? IMHO if you want successful change it has to come from the top, the bottom and the middle. I would go one step further and set up cross functional teams at the employee level as well. I don’t think it is enough to develop initiatives at the MLM level, I would argue there is just as much if not more value on the employee level.

I’m also interested to see how the perception of middle management influences decision making at the top. Are executives and consultants sitting in the proverbial ivory tower assuming that middle managers are task managers and can’t handle the strategy? Is there a belief that middle managers should stick to tasks and leave the strategy to the experts?

If that is the case it isn’t hard to understand how 68% of large-scale change initiatives fail. One of the bonuses of a leaner organization is that all employees are closer to the business and performance expectations are higher. We shouldn’t demand change and at the same time assume middle managers are the same task masters of the past.

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Melissa Fairman in leadership 3 Comments

Marketing Tips for HR

In Tuesday’s post I talked about why you need marketing. Go check that post out if you didn’t already. Back? OK great. Let’s talk about how you can use marketing concepts in HR.

Regardless if your company has a large marketing department or no department, that doesn’t mean you can’t apply marketing techniques to the projects and programs you roll out. Here are some tips and tricks:

Brainstorming: Instead of branding your latest program with some bland title, take some time to come up with a catchy word or phrase to describe your program. Start by getting your team together for a brainstorming session. If the team is having a hard time generating ideas, start by writing down words and phrases you associate with the topic at hand. Here is one example of a brainstorming session I did to name the new employee recognition program:

The idea is to generate as many words and phrases as you can. String phrases together. Throw out words associated with the topic. Once you have a few good ideas shop your ideas around to a variety of people: leaders, individual contributors, HR pros, people outside HR, you get the idea. Will this add to the time it takes you to roll out your program? Yes but it’s worth it.

Think like a marketer - your employees, like the rest of the world, are bombarded by emails, text messages and junk mail. How can you make your message compelling? What can you do to make your employees open that email from HR? Remember: in your communications you are selling HR. This means explaining “what’s in it for me?” to an employee population that is skeptical of another top down HR program. It also means taking some time to develop easy-to- read communications. This is more than just a well written email, it includes clear easy-to-use training materials, presentations and FAQ documents.

Generate some buzz - Is it possible to create buzz around an HR process or program? Yes. Is it easy? No. Will it take more effort and thought? Yes. Is it worth it? YES!

First, identify the “connectors” these are the people who cross locations, departments, and teams. They vary in the organization but you know ‘em when you seem ‘em. You also want to identify the “influencers” these are the people who are well connected and are well respected by employees. They are the ones who know all the gossip before it blows up. Connectors and influencers are important to rolling out your new program with some buzz around it, not the usual “oh another HR thing.” I highly suggest using these people as part of your focus groups. Besides their input, they also spread the word about all the things you focus group with them, which creates buzz.

These are just a couple ideas on what you can do to inject some marketing spark into HR. I don’t by any means consider this comprehensive but it is a start. I wanted to share with you the ideas that don’t require the use of high paid consultants or experts. The above is stuff you can start doing tomorrow at work: it’s relevant and its useful.

Speaking of which here are some additional resources you can read to keep up with the latest on marketing:

Guy Kawasaki, the original Apple evangelist: https://plus.google.com/+GuyKawasaki/posts

http://readwrite.com/

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

http://www.adverblog.com/ – more about advertising.

Also – advertising age publishes a list of power blogs: http://adage.com/power150/index

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Melissa Fairman in Future of HR, Strategy 2 Comments

Is social media relevant to the HR pro?

If you are curious about social media, have been to an HR conference, or a local SHRM meeting you’ve probably heard plenty about social media. Did you bite though? Did you sign up for a Twitter account?

Or maybe you just wrote it off as a fad?

Well, social media isn’t a fad.

Social media has done a lot for me and my career. As I’ve detailed before, having a big network with tons of connections is a great thing regardless where you are at in your career.

But I don’t think social media is the answer.

What?!

Stay with me. Here is the key, if you want to be successful on social media you have to be:

a great networker
or aspire to be a networker
or at the least be outgoing, open-minded and interested in other people

By the way I fall in that last category. I still struggle with the networking thing because I tend to be a bit shy; I’m not a born net-worker but I am open-minded, somewhat outgoing and have an interest in people.

The people who fit in the above categories are the people who are successful at social media. It is because they put effort into connecting with others, they would be successful regardless if it was online or in person.

The act of signing up for a Twitter account will not change anything. You have to be willing to interact with others. You have to be willing to follow others.

By the way, signing up for a Twitter account, locking it down and/or logging on once a week is not engaging in social media. I hate when people do that and then say “I tried Twitter, it was dumb.” No. You didn’t try Twitter; you made a half-ass attempt.

So to answer the question Anita is asking: “Do we need social media in HR?” “Is social media relevant to HR?” The answer is Yes and Yes! But only to the extent that you go into it with the right mindset.

Social media is not going to cure the following recurrent HR ills: crappy candidates, being the policy police, lack of an HR seat at the table or the general lack of respect HR gets.

But it will give you access to an extraordinary number of people who are willing to talk about and share their struggles and triumphs in HR. The kind of people who want to help their employees and their organization and they do that in a ton of different voices: sincerity, sarcasm, snark, humor and in serious tones as well.

Trust me, these are conversations you don’t want to miss! If you aren’t already follow me on Twitter, or connect with me over Facebook or LinkedIn.

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Melissa Fairman in Social Media 2 Comments

Some thoughts and the Weekly reMix 4/19/2013

I was born on the cusp of “generations” as defined by researchers. I’m not really Gen-Y or Gen-X, but I do identify with the 9/11 generation. That is the generation born between 1982-2000 that has had “front row” seats to some pretty terrible stuff: 9/11, the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 economic collapse to name a few. I read this article about the 9/11 generation a while ago and identified immediately with this quote:

“But most people my age, we say it’s terrible, we mourn on the day, and we move on. Because we have to. I think it pushes us to be the best we can be, so we can make a difference for the future.”

After seeing the horrible events that occurred this week in Boston, followed by the explosion and loss of life in Texas, to say I was unsettled is an understatement. But I don’t believe in letting anything hold me back. If anything this makes me more determined to attend public events as a kind of screw you to the people who would try to stop us from living a full life.

So that is the essence of what I want to say: I hope you still live your life. Don’t retreat from public events or go “prepper.” Step up and help where you can. We are all in this together.

[Insert Awkward Break]

With that said, here is the roundup of what I think are some of the best posts and articles I read this week:

Work/Life/Career: