Career Opportunities

A self-directed education is a wonderful and productive thing. Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to know where to aim your educational focus. To offer a bit of help with this, I have put together some resources around a particular topic to get you started. In this first “Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study” I am focusing on creativity and innovation, two very important topics for any careerist.

Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study

Creativity and Innovation

We all have in us the ability and the necessity to create. Whether we are working on the next great technology or the next great recipe, creativity allows us to combine old knowledge with our own experience and create something new and wonderful. In order to “build the career you deserve” you need to explore this creativity at every opportunity and in every way. Deny your creativity and you will lose it. Honor your creativity and it will honor you back with great ideas, innovation solutions and idea that no one has thought before.

Questions to Consider

• Why do we create?
• How do we create?
• Is every job a creative job? Why? Why not?
• Can creativity lead to a better life and career? How?
• Is creativity the gift of a precious few or is everyone creative?
• Can you set aside “creative time” in your calendar?
• What would you create, if you took the time and energy to do it?

Resources

• The Accidental Creative with Todd Henry – Blog | Podcast | Book
• Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney – Blog | Podcast | Book
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – Web Site | Book
• A Whack in the Side of the Head by Roger van Oech – Blog | Books
• Goosing Your Muse with JoAnn Braheny – Blog | JoAnn’s Creativity Book Recommendations
• Video: Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity from Ted.com
• Video: Tim Brown on creativity and play from Ted.com
• Video: Charles Leadbeater on innovation from Ted.com
• Video: Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering from Ted.com
• Book: Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
• Book: Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers
• Book: Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Book: If You Want to Write – A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
• Book: Jumpstart your Brain by Doug Hall
• Book: Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie
• Book: Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

*Many of these books are available at your local public library. Save yourself some money and look there first.

Share your thoughts!

What did you learn from this Suggest Course of Study? Do you have questions or comments? Would you like to discuss this with your fellow Career Opportunities readers and listeners?

You can create and continue the discussion on Creativity and Innovation here on the blog by posting a comment, or starting a conversation on the Career Opportunities Facebook page or the Career Opportunities page on Google+. You can discuss this topic in real-time on the Career Opportunities Work Room at Hall.com. This includes a chat room and video conferencing capabilities. Contact career@welchwrite.com for an invite.

I came across this very interesting blog post and discussion thread today on Google+.

Here is the original blog post that started the conversation.

ROBBIE ABED’S PERSONAL BLOG: Fire Me Now, I beg you!

In every situation I ask myself two questions:

• What do I want the outcome of this situation to be
• What do I secretly want the outcome of this situation to be

For example, at one of my previous jobs, my boss setup an emergency meeting in her office. The title of the calendar invite was “catch up”. It was one of those vague meeting titles that meant one of two things: 1) She wanted to catch up or 2) She was going to lay me off.

Read the entire article here

More importantly, here is a great discussion thread on Hacker News that that blog post generated.

YCombinator: Hacker News Discussion Board

There are some great thoughtful and insightful comments there, including…

This is actually a great mental exercise for determining if you’re fundamentally unhappy at your current job. Just try and imagine your boss calling into a meeting like the one the OP describes and giving you some sort of, “your work has been good, but unfortunately we have to make some changes, and this will be your last day” speech, and imagine how you would feel.If your reaction is something along the lines of relief, then you are fundamentally unhappy at your job. You have not only concluded that it is not a good situation, but that the situation is incapable of improving. It’s likely only artificial mental restraints keep you from doing anything about it (“oh man I may have to move, moving is annoying… and I guess I get paid pretty well, most of my friends are making half what I do… and my boss said some things would change, although he said that months ago…”) and those restraints aren’t even that strong, otherwise you wouldn’t be relieved if you got laid off.

It is very worthwhile to look through this thread no matter where you are in your current job.

Thanks to @ilovegarick, I checked into this evening’s #TChat – “At the intersection of talent and culture”, as it says on their web page. There was lots of talk about communities of all sorts, but especially about talent communities — people of similar talents, jobs, work gathering together for mutual benefit. Here are a few things I had to say during the chat.

If you want to join in on the #TChat fun, it happens each Wednesday night at 7pm EDT/4 pm PST. You can use your own Twitter client or the TweetChat.com service to aid you in your participation.

Tonight’s topic was Talent Communities. I must admit, the term wasn’t familiar to me. Before the chat I headed over to Wikipedia for more information.

Link: Talent Community from Wikipedia.com

• As much as we might like to have “terms” we can hang our hats on, I wouldn’t get so tied up in the terminology.
• Communities require that you join them, not be a member by default. You have to engage.
• Sometimes your community isn’t enough. You need to go out and join the communities that have the people you are seeking to recruit
• i.e. If you are recruiting programmers, you better be on the programmer’s forums. That is where the talented people often are
• Important to remember too that you are never just a member of one community. We all have multiples in our lives and work
• For people, a community is yet another place to show people “what you do and how well you do it” which is so needed for all workers
• In some ways, you entire life is your community. Just as likely to meet candidates at Starbucks as in an office or job fair
• You need to be aware of talent no matter what you are or what you are doing. Your next placement could come from a fellow gym member
• The best communities are already, by default, showing you who has the best “chops/skills/energy” You just need to listen to them.
• Finding talent should be integrated into you life. Something you always do. Not limited to specific situations, times, communities
• You need to be careful that you don’t create too many “silos” in your life, all compartmentalized. Let things blend and bleed together
• I like to think I have one community — mine, but it has a lot of different neighborhoods, each with their own character
• I’ve never been able to draw lines between personal and professional life. They mush together waaaay to much for that. I am me, period
• So here is the rub, though. I don’t think you can form a talent community from the outside, I think those with the skills do it together
• As a recruiter, I think you need to be more focused on finding useful communities than trying to create/recreate your own
• You can’t force people to interact. That is for sure. It has to come naturally. They have to have something interesting to say.
• You create your own personal community every day. Bring in those people who are interesting/useful to you and enjoy.
• I would say that the manufacturing of a community can be very low key, though. Hey, come over to #tchat tonight and let’s talk for example. Give them a place to gather.
• Your communities are a collection of overlapping and intersecting bubbles. They all effect each other as you bring info from 1 to other
• I think I have come around to the fact that we should be joining other communities, not trying to create our own world. Go find them.
• Go where people are already discussing their work – telling others “what they do and how well they do it” Why need our own – Is it control?
• Smart folks treat every job as freelance/contract and shouldn’t stop networking, etc. More people need to do that.
• Companies can use Talent Communities to develop collection of talented people they can turn to when in need. Need a programmer? Here are 30+ to choose from.
• Companies shouldn’t wait for great candidates to send in a resume from an ad. They should be building a list continuously.
• There is never really a lack of talent. More likely the company doesn’t know where talent is. Needs to go find it.
• Major reason companies need to be reaching out/cultivating communities more, in fact

We are currently having an interesting discussion about counteroffers in the workplace over on Google+. Stop by and chime in with your comments. I would love to hear what you think. To join in, click the link below or Circle me on Google+.

Douglas Welch -  12:26 PM –

-  Public

I agree with their advice. If the company wanted to retain you, they needed to do the right thing first, without being faced with your departure.

Skip the Counteroffer When Resigning a Job to Make a Graceful Exit

It’s happened to most of us at one point or another: you turn in your notice at a job, and the company scrambles to make a counteroffer designed to make you want to stay.

I stopped by the weekly #beonfire Twitter chat this evening for the first time and stepped into a discussion about tenacity and persistence. Here are some highlights from my comments during the chat.

• As with all things, you have to balance tenacity and persistence with thinking or you can try harder at the wrong thing.
• @Pistachio Yes, we all have cycles in our energy level. You have to know where you are a the moment and how to proceed
• @ShellyKramer Anything you learn from is NOT a failure, even if you close/abandon that particular project.
• @BSchuler I think true failure is rare, but re-aligning is very, very common. We adjust with each step we take.
• @Pistachio Important to understand that certain projects go “fallow” for periods of time, then come back. Not really dead.
• I think more people are stopped by fear of failure then failure itself, so important to get people moving in any way.
• Really tenacity is using inertia in our favor. Letting small movements carry us along — Object in motion staying in motion
• @npersona Tenacity and persistence is about Intelligent thinking about WHY you are being tenacious and persistent. Stubbornness is ego driven.
• For me, the difference is am I doing for what I want to accomplish or because my ego is over-involved in some way. Ego = big problem
• For me, this is why I work with/collaborate with others. Doing something with/for others helps with the ego.
• @Pistachio Sometimes, you just have to kick yourself on the butt and realize you are being destructive in  your stubbornness. i.e.
• @Pistachio when we “take our ball and go home” unless people do it exactly our way. THAT is EGO with a Capital E
• What drives me? Others. I have often said that I do my best work when I am working for something that helps others as well as myself
• @ShellyKramer Yes. Everbody wins or no go. Winning at the expense of others, knowingly and actively is BAD JUJU.
• What will I be more tenacious about? Working hard to spread word about my career unconferences and finding more backing. Fund raising is NOT my strong suit.

A complete transcript of this #beonfire Twitter can can be found on their web page.

Another great #CareerChat Twitter chat today. Below are some of my comments during the chat. Join is for #careerchat, each Tuesday Morning at 1pm EST/10am PST. You can view the entire chat using this Twitter Search on #CareerChat.

• For me, I think that people need to get the word out immediately about their availability. Put your network to work.
• Keep your LinkedIn profile updated at all times. It is easy to do and doing it little by little is much easier than big updates
• Put some thought into what you WANT in your next job, not just what you NEED. You want the BEST job, no just the NEXT job.
• FYI @careertips is Douglas E. Welch from Career Opportunities column and podcast
• just published a Kindle booklet called Career Compass to help people decide what they truly WANT to do. Timely
• In many cases, your network might turn up opportunities you can act on within days. Best case scenario.
• As for volunteering, consider starting your own org/group/etc and “volunteer” for yourself.
• You need to constantly be showing people “what you do and how well you do it!” Never stop looking.
• After a layoff is not the time to be trying to figure out LI, updating resume and such. Need to be prepared.
• Need to be prepared even if you are working. Never know what opportunities might come your way. Be ready to take advantage.
• I always recommend “telling a story” in your resume rather than just listing skills. Stories really help sell you.
• Think out if it is time to relocate geographically, too. Where are the best opportunities for your type of job?
• Speaking with our Sicilian relatives, temporary relocation for work is a fact of life for them. That surprised me.
• Further on starting own group – if you are group, you know some people, if you start a group, everyone knows YOU.
• Don’t undersell your own skills. Chronic problem with workers today. Not askign you be arrogant, but respect what you bring.
• I feel they (paper resumes) are dead. I WISH they were dead, but old habits die hard. Seems an antiquated job search tool to me.
• Educate! There are so many sources for online lifetime learning these days. Heck, you can learn much just searching YouTube.
• Most resumes are designed to be consumed by digital systems at companies, so they look more like data than a resume
• My recent podcast on Lifetime Learning – Lifetime learning enhances your life and career – http://t.co/4Uy3jKsv
• I am also highlighting online classes that I find interesting on my blogs, etc. All sorts of topics – iTunes U, CodeAcademy, MIT
• Use About.me and others. It is not an either/or question, but Yes/And. That said, have your own home base blog to point to
• A blog is your home base to show people what you do and how well you do it. Collect EVERYTHING there.
• Give people as much opportunity to stumble upon you as possible. Be everywhere you can be, but link all to home.
• You never know where your next opportunity might come from. You don’t know who your audience might be.
• My goal for everyone is to attract work TO THEM, rather than having to go looking for work.
• t seems only right as the Internet has given us great tools to network and market ourselves, if we only used them
• You are just as likely to find your next in a locker room, in the coffee shop or online as you are in traditional process
• As a freelance consultant, a lot of my clients come from happenstance meetups around town, through friends and family.
• I think of “opening the lines of communication” to be one of our most important jobs for our own self preservation
• No one else can/will care as much about your career as you do. They simply can’t. It is up to you to build career.
• ..and trust yourself, and love yourself, and respect yourself…
• As Edison said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
• I find that work for yourself and on yourself is far less onerous than work for others. Tough to do, but good.
• I find that constructive criticism is hard to find. Too many people cloak as constructive, but are actually destructive
• Shameless plug – My Kindle books on careers and social media available from my site at http://t.co/y5CQ0xSw
• Have to consider the source greatly. Too many “blocked” people build themselves up by tearing down others. Sad.
• Insecurity is one of the most damaging traits in society today. It leads people to do some amazingly bad things.

Join me for the Career Opportunities Office Hour Google+ Hangout on Wednesday, January 11, 2011 at 9pm EST/6pm PST.

This is an open discussion of whatever career topics are on your mind. Bring you questions and discussion topics.

Circle my personal Google+ account or the Career Opportunities G+ page to see the link to the hangout on Wednesday.

Click to join this hangout

(If hangout is not currently in progress, you will be returned to this blog post)

I recently had this discussion with a new acquaintance over on Google+. I love getting questions like this and I have even branched out into providing one-to-one career consulting so I can help more people.  You can follow my personal profile on Google+ or circle (Google+’s version of follow) the Career Opportunities profile. Clicking either link will take you to the appropriate page.

Do you have career questions? Drop me a line on Google+ or any of my other blogs or social media sites.

T: I absolutely fail at job interviews. I don’t know what it is but, I could be the most confident person walking in, but as soon as I get in front of the interviewer, especially if it is a job that I really want, I freeze up. I start thinking all of these negative thoughts in my head, and I just know they can read my uneasiness on me. Right now I am applying for an opportunity at Red Cross, and even though it is a volunteer opportunity and not a paying job, they want to interview you for it. I am fearful that I will look good on paper, but not so much in person.

Is there any advice you can give to help me to not sabotage myself at interviews? Any secrets or tricks of the trade to help with my self-confidence?

Douglas: I would call what you are experiencing a “crisis of confidence” and it happens to everyone on occasion. (Been there, done that myself) You allow yourself to get so stressed about what MIGHT happen that you aren’t paying attention to what IS happening. We can all doubt ourselves and our skills on occasion, but you DO have the skills you need, you DO have the knowledge and you CAN do the job. This is true of all of us unless we have some impairment. Look around you and see everything you have accomplished in your life. You can accomplish even more.

The stress can also come from being judged. I know I hate being judged so I can empathize with you. That said, let them judge. You are who you are regardless of what they think about you. You need to feel confident in yourself and it will matter less how they judge you. They will judge you, but you will handle it better because you have an innate confidence in yourself.

Think of the interview as a conversation and treat it as such. I think many of us take an interview much too formally. There should discussion about the job of course, but if the conversation turns in an interesting direction — follow it. If you have an illuminating example of something from your life, share it. Try to show as much about WHO you are as WHAT you know. Remember, an interview is basically about them trying to see if they could stand to be around you day in and day out. (SMILE) Of course, you will want to avoid the typical touchy areas — sex, religion, politics — unless you are working for a company or group who specializes in those areas. No need to go into your drunken revels, either, but that probably doesn’t need to be said. (LAUGH)

Also, You might just be caring too much about getting this job.True to your present circumstances or not, you need to feel like you don’t NEED the job. You may WANT the job. You may LIKE the job, but you don’t NEED it. Feeling needy can stop us in our tracks and, I think, the interviewer can feel it, too. Try to push the NEED from your mind, even if you are feeling that you really do NEED it. You should always feel that you have other options. If not this job, then the next, or maybe the next. You should never feel you are there begging for a job. The company needs you as much as you need them. Remember that always. It is true — and if it isn’t true at this particular company, find a company where it is true.

This neediness has a lot in common with the “desperation factor” that we can sometimes see in others (and maybe ourselves) when we are dating. These people are so desperate to have a date, a girlfriend, a wife that it spills over into their actions. The come on too strong. They come on too needy. They come on as desperate. Other people can sense this desperation and recoil from it, as you have probably done yourself at one time or another. You are not desperate, you are just looking for a job.

Finally, find a quiet place and imagine what a perfect interview would look like.

(INSERT DREAM SEQUENCE HERE)

The interview meets you and provides you a coffee exactly as you love it. Tall Latte, 3 caramel pumps, extra whipped cream. You go to a comfortable office where you sit across from each other in comfortable arm chairs. You chat. You discuss. You have a great conversation. You think, “Hey I could see myself being friends with this person.”

Of course, most interviews won’t go like this, but imagine how would feel if they did. No remember that feeling and keep it within you no matter what actually happens. I hope it will make you feel calm, comfortable and confident, not matter what questions they ask.

I hope this helps on your next interview. Let me know if you have any follow up questions to this topic or any new questions you would like me answer.

T: thank you so much for all your advice. I can only hope that when I go into the next job interview that I can keep all this in mind. 

I have submitted my application with Red Cross and am now awaiting their phone call. That’s another thing I hate – waiting. Even though this is only a volunteer opportunity it is an amazing one and I do hope to get a callback for an interview about it. I have been unemployed for about six months, and it has been 3 months since I last got an interview, even though everyday I have been sending out resumes and attending job fairs. I am running out of options, really.

Douglas: You are very welcome! I hope that it helps you feel better about your interviews.

As for waiting…Go do something else while you wait! 

Don’t sit around waiting and worrying. It is so important to have many “irons in the fire” so you don’t end up obsessing about any one of them.

What else can you be doing?

Want to organize a +CareerCamp International in your area? (SMILE)

How about just getting together with others to share techniques, job leads and more.

Get out there and DO as much as you can. It often leads to bigger and better things you never imagined.

Join me for the Career Opportunities Office Hour Google+ Hangout on Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 1pm EST/10am PST.

Circle my personal Google+ account or the Career Opportunities G+ page to see the link to the hangout on Wednesday.

The office is now OPEN!

The office hour has ended. Thanks to all who attended.

Here is what I had to say on today’s #careerchat. The topics was “What makes a good job candidate?” I got into a good discussion on how companies should be looking for candidates instead of waiting for them to submit their resumes.

• FYI @careertips is Douglas E. Welch from the Career Opportunities podcast – http://t.co/XMtas25U
• A1: There are so many traits to call out. Action driven, forward thinking, passionate about their work, self-confident…
• A2: On a resume, I prefer to see a “story” or their accomplishments, not just a list. I think stories have more impact.
• Question: Wouldn’t it be better to go out and find your perfect candidates instead of waiting for them to come to you?
• I would love to see people switch over to that method. Look for those people already presenting themselves well on the ‘Net.
• I find it a bit odd that we are still so focused on paper resumes (or online equivs) and such. Look for people, not paper.
• @DavidGaspin I think a lot of people/companies are relying on a method that is 100+ years old and not embracing new tools.
• Constantly be looking for people who meet your needs everywhere — online forums, chats, G+, Facebook etc.
• People present “what they do and how well they do it” every day. We need to pay more attention.
• For me, resumes might as well be stone tablets, as the “technology” is so archaic. Surely we can come up with a better method.
• For a careerist, I recommend using social media to show people “what you do and how well you do it” every day in every way.
• Get jobs to come to them instead of going out and begging for a job
• @DavidGaspin Not a recruiter. I think that people can/do show more of themselves in their interactions than you evr see on paper
• @DavidGaspin You get a much more rounded idea of their skills and who they are as a person if/when you interact with them.
• @LearnDevelopLLC The trouble is, you want it to be easy for you. You want to use resume as a rubric to cull.
• An example, if you are looking for programmers, do you frequent prog. forums, newsgroups, mailing lists? Why not? That is where
• …your best candidates are already
• …and the best people will be demonstrating their skills at programming, communication and interaction there for you to see
• @DavidGaspin I think that we will see that relying on resumes doesn’t scale. Hence the number of tech jobs going open today
• People are starting to realize the a company has to offer something to them and their career, too. They will go where wanted
• @DavidGaspin You can find the candidates you want to bring in for further discussion and present mgrs with small pool
• @DavidGaspin Just as before, you are just finding your candidates, hopefully better ones, in a different way.
• @DavidGaspin You are going looking for people instead of waiting for them to find you.
• I believe that for certain jobs, recruitment is the only way to go. Candidates simply have too many good options/alternatives
• They aren’t reading the want ads looking for a job. People are already coming to them i.e. recruiting them.
• @benwmaddox Nah, I think recruiters are best lurking in forums and such. Places where people demonstrate their skills and such
• Phone calls are yet another archaic tech I would like to kill off. (LAUGH)
• @SalarySchool ..and I think they should. Find your candidates where they live and work.
• @bizMebizgal To me it seems a no brainer. People are willingly showing you who they are, what they do, why not use it.
• @bizMebizgal Here in LA I am constantly referring people to the Web405 mailing list to find progs/designers/etc
• BTW, before it gets to late – Book Giveaway on blog – The Adversity Paradox – http://t.co/XMtas25U
• @DavidGaspin I see more jobs trending the same way as tech, though. People have more options now and will start to see that.
• @DavidGaspin It is a general movement towards everyone seeing themselves as freelancer even if currently an employee.
• @DavidGaspin Email is the new gold standard for contacts or contacting them using whatever service they use. FB, Twitter, etc.
• @SalarySchool I think we are starting to see the non-competes are nearly unenforceable. Too close to indentured servitude.
• @SalarySchool You can’t take my livelihood from me just because you have competitors.
• @DavidGaspin No, since online interaction is immediate and clearly demonstrates who they are and what they do.
• @DavidGaspin I don’t agree. Online interaction is much more free flowing, open and enlightening than any paper (or LI) resume
• @gg3nyc (Re: One Page Resume) That is one reason I consider the resume archaic. Artificial limitation on content. It is one page as that is…
• …less work for person looking at resumes, not because it has any actual bearing on the information.