Now that the side bed has been turned into a raised bed, it’s time to plant. Today I put in short rows of green onions, Parisian Carrots. Cauliflower and beans.
“In the garden…” is a series for A Gardener’s Notebook highlighting what is happening in my garden, my friend’s gardens and California gardens throughout the seasons.
Despite the fact that I often talk about attaining raises and promotions in your career, I don’t often discuss their ramifications to both your work and your personal life. The fact is, when you move into an expanded role, especially a managerial role, the expectations of those around you are going to rise. Each new position brings about a new level of control and commitment. If you ignore this, your transition into the new role can be more difficult than it should be.
It is important to remember that when you receive a promotion or a raise in pay, you are accepting new roles and new commitments. You might not think it at first, but your manager is going to expect something more in response to your new status. Promotions and raises aren’t so much a reward for past service, but more an incentive for future services. Managers are going to expect you to “step up to the plate” and take a more active role in projects and day-to-day issues. Unfortunately, though, they often don’t take the time to explain exactly what their new expectations are. Too often, they simply assume that you will know how to take on the new role, even though it hasn’t been well defined or, perhaps, even described to you.
In order to keep your career on track, you need to take the initiative to clearly define any increased expectations. This can range from the simple realities of new meetings you should be attending to the specifics of who you should be supervising and mentoring within your group. Have this important conversation with your manager as soon as possible after your new promotion is announced. Otherwise, you will find yourself in a sort of limbo between positions.
I am sure you have seen newly minted supervisors who spend their first few weeks wandering around in a daze, trying to figure out their new place in the organization and the expectations of those around them. You want to insure that your transition is as smooth as possible, though, so you can start being effective in your new role from the very first day.
Subtleties
Beyond your official work role, there are more subtle expectations that can effect your work life. These can be even more troublesome than the issues above, as there are fewer guidelines available to you and they can have an insidious effect on your work life if they are ignored.
First, there are expectations about who you will associate with in your new role. I am sure you have heard stories about rank-and-file workers suddenly elevated to a supervisor or manager role. Suddenly you are no longer one of “us”, you are now one of “them”. This can be a crushing blow for some people, as it removes the work support structure carefully built over the years. Worse still, this happens before you have built any sort of support structure in your new role. You can feel adrift as you try to navigate the passage between the two. That said, you need to understand the unique culture of your company. In some cases, there won’t be a problem with you continuing to lunch with your former peers. In other companies, this will be seen as a social faux pas of the highest degree.
Second, the subtle cues of work attire are almost sure to be an issue. Jeans and polo shirts might have been appropriate in your past position, but now, suddenly you are elevated into the world of suits and ties. Again, it depends on your individual company, but you are well advised to be aware of these expectations, as well. While I personally detest the affectations of business dress codes (perhaps this is one reason I work for myself), you ignore them at your peril.
Finally, not only will expectations rise in your new role, but you should also expect them to rise. It only makes sense that new positions will bring more and different responsibilities. Any attempt to ignore this fact will hamper your transition into your new role and could derail your career entirely. While your work performance is certainly the most important part of your career, you must also deal with the more subtle world of the expectations of those around you.
I interview my wife, Dr. Rosanne Welch on her recently published essay, “When White Boys Write Black: Race and Class in the Davies and Moffat Eras” in the collection, Doctor Who and Race published by Intellect.
The Dog Days of PodcastingChallenge this month has got me stretching my podcasting muscles a bit, so it finally seemed time to create a Minecraft Let’s Play, after playing the game for over a year and recently resetting our server world to start afresh.
We have a few close friends on our multiplayer server and I always enjoy that more than playing by myself. It creates surprises and new adventures as other “citizens” discover new biomes, spawners, temples and villages. We can also join together for big quests like beating the Ender Dragon and the Whither.
So, welcome to WelchWorld and my first episode of MineFull!
So, as of today we are 15 days into the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge. It has been somewhat easier than I thought, as I have a number of shows I try to produce regularly, so I only have to fill the holes that remain. Still, it as also gotten me moving on some ideas I have had for a long time.
Today’s podcast, MineFull – A Minecraft Let’s Play, has been in my mind for a long time, but I never had enough motivation to get moving on it. Things always seemed to get in the way and the thought of doing a podcast about playing a game seemed a bit frivolous. That said, it is a different form of podcast than anything I have done in the past, so it is a great stretch of my podcasting muscles.
I had also been meaning to do many more interviews for all the podcasts, but most especially Career Opportunities. I think it is so important to introduce readers and listeners to new people, new jobs, new careers and new ideas in order to help them grow. Again, the Dog Days finally got me moving on that project, along with some new equipment that was purchased for producing a series of videos for a client. I now have a better video camera, better mics and, most importantly, some decent lighting for shooting indoors, especially for interviews. I have recorded 3 interviews so far and will record another one today. I will probably be releasing them once per week for the next several weeks.
I thought at the beginning of the challenge I might have to fill in with more stream-of-conciousness audio podcasts in order to fill all the podcast slots, but that hasn’t happened. That said, I may still do some of those merely as a way of playing around and showing the possibilities of Podcasting and New Media.
Of course, now I want to hear what you think about the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge as we head into the downhill portion of the month. Has it been illuminating, boring, challenging, frightening, enlightening? Have you listened to or watched other podcasters who are taking the challenge? You can find all our podcasts over the on Dog Days of Podcasting web site and associated RSS feed. You can even subscribe to the feed and have each days podcasts automatically downloaded and moved to your iTunes, iPod, iPhone or iPad.
Leave some comments to tell me what you think AND what you’d like to see and hear in the next 15 days of the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge!
Career Conversation: Jennifer Oliver O’Connell of Tuesdays with Transitioners
Douglas talks with Jennifer Oliver O’Connell, founder and leader of Tuesdays with Transitioners, a job group in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, California. We talk about career transition, some misconceptions about transition and even how employers can work with transitioners to find great employees.
More information on Jennifer Oliver O’Connell and Tuesdays with Transitioners:
I recently did a Google Image search on the word “career” just to see what it would turn up. There I found lots of pictures of signposts and arrows, lots of uses of the word Career in various typographic styles and, of course, eager, young (almost exclusively) workers attired in suits, ties and/or skirts, often carrying briefcases. While I wasn’t that surprised by the search results, I find myself continually surprised by the icons from the past that we still use to represent work and career. Almost like the stereotypical usage of an old, rotary phone being used to represent a telephone or any type of call, the use of the briefcase or the suit and tie is just as outdated..
Yes, of course, many people still report to a standard office wearing the standard corporate uniform, but many others now work in companies, locations and even in attire quite different. In fact, I would say that the standard icons we use for career represent less and less of the modern workforce every day. They also highlight our outdated views of career at a time when we need new and more powerful ways of developing the career you deserve. The anachronism of these icons might fool someone into thinking that today’s work world is just like our parents, or grandparents time, when I think it is clear that today’s work world is very much different, much more complex and filled with so many new opportunities.
So, I am asking all of you. What do you think the new icon for career should be? What visual metaphors spring to mind when you think of your work and your career? What single image springs to mind when someone says the word career? I’d love to hear what you think and what might envision. Share your ideas in the comments on this column, on the Career-Op pages on Facebook and Google+ or reply to me via Twitter at @careertips. I’d love to see your ideas!
For myself, my own thinking about new career icons follows a number of tracks. Here are a few of my ideas:
Computer//Tablet/Smartphone
Since its invention, the telephone has always represented communication and, in many ways, business itself. “Let your fingers do the walking” through the Yellow Pages used to be one, major way of finding business and services and even customers that you needed. Today, with the ubiquitous nature of computers in business, along with the more recent counterparts, the tablet and smartphone, I think a good case could be made for making these devices the “briefcase” of our era. Instead of folders of documents, the daily newspaper, magazines and perhaps a lunch crammed into a briefcase, we carry our data and our knowledge around in these smaller and smaller digital “briefcases.” I think it is safe to say that the smartphone alone could become an icon for overall human productivity, not just career. So much, both good and bad, useful and not, occurs on these devices that it seems likely they will become the new icon of work and career.
A network of interconnecting lines and arrows
One clear truth about careers in this age, and even in the past to some extent, is that your career is made up of a host of connections between people, companies, data and more. A network diagram with lines and arrows going in every direction certainly seems to reflect the nature of career. Rarely do you walk your career path alone. You are constantly connecting with new people, new technology, and new information. I think a good visual icon for career should clearly represent this integrated series of connections where we live and work every day. Not only would it better represent the reality of our lives and work, but also reinforce the importance of these connections both for us and for those around us.
You
People often appear as career icons — the dapper professional, the uniformed plumber, the rugged construction worker, but too often they are both stereotypical and generic. As I often preach here in Career Opportunities, your career is personal — one of the most personal aspects of your life. Your career is, and should be, unique from any other career in order to match your wants needs and desires. Stereotypes are less and less useful today, as more people are developing what could be considered very non-traditional careers. They combine a unique blend of skills, knowledge and desire to create their own, personal career. Perhaps this means that the best visual icon for a career should simply be a picture of yourself, doing what you do. Maybe you are simply the best visual icon for your career. Someone as unique and individual as the career they develop.
What images come to mind when you think of career? Do they help you in the building of the career you deserve or do they hold you back with archaic ideas about work and career? Share your best visual career icons with myself and all the readers and listeners of Career Opportunities. Perhaps, together, we can find a new metaphor that represents career in a deeper and more meaningful way and move “Beyond the Briefcase!”
“In the garden…” is a series for A Gardener’s Notebook highlighting what is happening in my garden, my friend’s gardens and California gardens throughout the seasons.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about making your resume into a blog (See Your resume a blog, January 5, 2007) and today I want to go a little deeper into what information you might want to place there. Whether you are creating your new resume blog, or using the more traditional resume and cover letter, you should be specific about your career story. It is these details that will provoke interest in you and your work.
Read any book on good writing and nearly all of them will preach the gospel of specific and unique detail. If you want your writing to have power and emotional impact, you need highly detailed sections of description. Where a beginning writer might write, “The bird sat in the tree,” a more experienced writer would write, “The bright red cardinal, with its black mask and pointed cap, sat high in the tall, leafless, maple tree and sang its purdy-purdy-purdy song with gusto.” While this might be a bit of purple prose, it is certainly more engaging than, ‘The bird sat in the tree.” Details in the story make the reader want to know more about the cardinal and his story — details in your resume make the potential employer want to know more about you and your career.
Clearly, the same rules apply for your resumes and cover letter writing. Don’t say the career equivalent of “The bird sat in the tree.” Of course, you don’t simply want to create a laundry list of hardware and software you managed, either. The details need to be wrapped up within a complete story. This is the difference between a telephone book and a novel. One is just information, the other is an engaging tale that can sometimes change the world.
For example, instead of simply saying, “I worked with Windows,” say “One major project included a national rollout (3 sites/1000+ systems) of Windows XP SP2 and MS Office in which I managed 18 staff members of all levels and developed solutions to software issues that prevented employees from accessing a critical, legacy, AS/400 system. These issues were caused by conflicts between our client software (X), network hardware (Y) and connectivity issues using AT&T leased lines. I created a task force with members from all these vendors, and internal staff to resolve the issues while still maintaining the project timeline.”
I am sure your own career stories are much better than this made-up example, but the concept should be clear. Again, as most writing books will tell you, every good story addresses who, what, when, where, why and how. Make sure you get all that information into your career story. Of all of these items, though, I think the most important aspects are the why and the how. Too often, we don’t do enough to expose our thought processes and methods to those around us. Concentrating on “why” shows prospective employers what you think and how you go about the process of setting up a project, while the “how” gives them specific information on how you implemented that project and the hurdles you crossed to complete it.
Pick and choose
Just as you don’t want to overwhelm your reader with laundry lists of hardware and software, you don’t want to try and tell all your stories in one novel-length resume. The traditional 1-page resume form means you have to pick and choose which stories are most important to each employer and which tell the specific story you want to relate to that particular employer. Again, just as a writer considers their audience, so should you. If you are applying for a position as a network manager, you should choose stories that reflect that experience. A different position will naturally require a different set of stories. Overall, I would recommend that you present no more than three individual stories in any resume. More than that could overwhelm the reader. Less than that might not provide enough information. Of course, your resume blog can contain as many stories as you like, since it is being accessed in different fashion. Your end goal, in any situation, is to be invited in for a face-to-face interview. Make sure your resume interests the reader so much that they simply have to meet you in person.
Even though you might not be a writer by trade, you can use the writer’s tools to craft resumes and cover letters that are filled with the specific detailed stories necessary to tell your career story in the best way possible.
Want a great way to find cool books to read? Visit your local library. That’s right, your library. Then locate the “Sorting Shelves.” Ask the librarian, if you can’t find themselves. Sorting shelves contain books which have recently been returned by other patrons and are being sorted by subject, so they can be reshelved in their proper locations.
You are almost sure to find something interesting here via pure serendipity. It only makes sense that those books which have circulated recently might be of interest to you, too. These shelves will be a great mixture of every genre, from cookbooks to philosophy, as well a collection of both new books and old.
Next time you are looking for something interesting to read, check out the sorting shelves at your local library. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Music: “Mining by Moonlight”, Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com, Creative Commons License
Want a great way to find cool books to read? Visit your local library. That’s right, your library. Then locate the “Sorting Shelves.” Ask the librarian, if you can’t find themselves. Sorting shelves contain books which have recently been returned by other patrons and are being sorted by subject, so they can be reshelved in their proper locations.
You are almost sure to find something interesting here via pure serendipity. It only makes sense that those books which have circulated recently might be of interest to you, too. These shelves will be a great mixture of every genre, from cookbooks to philosophy, as well a collection of both new books and old.
Next time you are looking for something interesting to read, check out the sorting shelves at your local library. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Music: “Mining by Moonlight”, Kevin MacLeod, Incompetech.com, Creative Commons License
Time to repair an older, but still serviceable, garden hose with some parts from the home improvement store and a little time. So easy anyone — yes even I — can do it! (LAUGH)
“In the garden…” is a series for A Gardener’s Notebook highlighting what is happening in my garden, my friend’s gardens and California gardens throughout the seasons.
Bill Farmer, The Voice of Disney’s Goofy, Talks about “A Career in Voiceover”
Douglas sits down with Bill Farmer, voice actor for Disney’s Goofy and many other well-known animated characters. We talk about a career in voiceover, how to build it, how to sustain it and career potential of becoming a voice actor today.
I rebuild one of the containers, removing some basil plants into other pots, remixing the soil with worm castings and some organic fertilizer and planting it up with carrots and radish seeds.
“In the garden…” is a series for A Gardener’s Notebook highlighting what is happening in my garden, my friend’s gardens and California gardens throughout the seasons.
Part of the Dog Days of Podcasting, A 30 Podcast in 30 Days Challenge taken by a wide variety of podcasters including the host of Careers in New Media, Douglas E. Welch.
Visit any business and you will find a host of the employees plodding through their work day. Clearly, they lost all energy and excitement about their work years ago, but instead of seeking a better job elsewhere, they put in their time day after day and wonder when someone will come and save them from the monotony. Truth be told, this is never going to happen. No one is going to come and take them away from their dull and pointless careers.
Visit any business and you will find a host of the employees plodding through their work day. Clearly, they lost all energy and excitement about their work years ago, but instead of seeking a better job elsewhere, they put in their time day after day and wonder when someone will come and save them from the monotony. Truth be told, this is never going to happen. No one is going to come and take them away from their dull and pointless careers.
The fact is, the only person who cares about your career is you. If you don’t take the initiative to reach out and find something better, no one will. Your managers, your company and your peers can’t care about your career. They are too busy thinking about their own concerns to add yours to the mix. You can’t sit around waiting for the career equivalent of the big lottery jackpot, I can guarantee you that it will never arrive.
Find some energy
Part of the reason people get trapped in unfulfilling jobs is that they allow it to sap their energy and their spirit. They simply feel too tired to pursue anything but the input-only entertainment of television or video games. Energy, though, is exactly what they need to find. They need to conserve one small bit of energy every day so that they can seek out one small, yet fulfilling opportunity or idea. Like exercise, the more you do it, the more you feel like doing it. You just have to locate that small kernel of energy that let’s you start the ball rolling.
Where do you find this energy? In most cases, you simply need to let go. Even when a job is unfulfilling we still carry a certain, inborn sense of responsibility. We still worry about the bureaucracy, the politics, the chances of layoffs or bankruptcy. It is one of the few times when we can care too much about the fate of our company. We allow these worries to drag us down and sap all our energy, even though we might be telling ourselves that we don’t care about our job at all.
So, disconnect from your job to find the energy you need to grow. Now, I am not telling you to stop doing your work. That would be foolish. I want you to disconnect from the petty, childish and demeaning parts of your job that are sapping energy you could be investing elsewhere. Do you and your peers spend your breaks and lunches complaining about the company? Are you carrying around anger, disgust or even hatred of your company? Let it go! You have better things to do with your time.
Investment
Once you start engaging in these damaging behaviors, you will suddenly find that you have more time, more energy for more enjoyable activities. Maybe that news story from today’s paper will entice you out to a new park or store. Perhaps you’ll feel like cooking that new dish you wanted to try. It is in these small ways that you’ll first see improvements. Then, as you gain more and more energy, the effects will spill over into other aspects of your life. Like a snowball rolling downhill, the energy grows and grows of its own accord.
Oddly enough, you might even find yourself enjoying and engaging in your current job more. Once you disconnect from those destructive behaviors, you might find out that your job isn’t quite as bad or quite as hopeless as you might have imagined. Sometimes, you’ll find that your new found energy is best re-invested in making your current job better, instead of moving somewhere else.
“In the garden…” is a series for A Gardener’s Notebook highlighting what is happening in my garden, my friend’s gardens and California gardens throughout the seasons.
Here is my first, real, entry in the Dog Days of Podcasting Challenge. I’ll post each days podcast here, regardless of what other show it falls under, so you can see them all together — Douglas
A few weeks ago I talked about how to attract work and opportunities to you, instead of constantly begging for your next job. One of the biggest elements of attracting work to you is using social media to share the most interesting aspects of your life and work and show people “what you do and how well you do it.” Of course, it is worth taking some time to think about what you might share on your social media feeds that contribute to this end goal. Here are a few ideas to get you started in sharing the right kind of information.
These aren’t some self-serving stories about how you saved the day, although some may have that aspect about them. Rather you are sharing these stories to help anyone else who might be experiencing the same, or similar, issues in their own line of work. Depending on your work, this could be a post on how you solved a particular tricky accounting problem, solved a difficult problem with a hidden leak (if you are a plumber), made a car run better (if you are a mechanic) or created a great computer system that saved your company tens of thousands of dollars (or even a few.) As you can see, it doesn’t matter what type of work you do. We all have interesting stories to tell that can be tremendously useful to others. By sharing these stories, you not only show people the quality of the work you do, you also help them solve their own, similar problems. This alone could lead to a job or consulting offer down the road. I know it has worked this way for me.
What you are reading, watching, listening
Sometimes, the media we are consuming can be very illuminating about our lives and our work. For myself, I make a point of sharing what books I am reading, what blogs I subscribe to, what videos I am watching and the podcasts I listen to as I drive about on business and pleasure. I think that if people pay attention to these items, they can get a very clear idea about where my interests lie and it can do the same for you. Again, the best thing about this is that you are just sharing what you find interesting, not trying to promote yourself, so it is a nice, soft pedal, way of accomplishing the goal of letting people know you — and your work — better.
Your thoughts on work, industry and life issues
While you need to be careful about descending to the level of a “rant” in these posts, working out your job issues in writing can help you discover solutions to solve the problem. Don’t name names, but rather address the deeper issues involved. Create “what if” scenarios of what you might do to solve the problem if you had the power. Tell people how you personally dealt with a problem, even if you couldn’t change the situation yourself. You can, and should, also talk about issues in your industry and how you would address the problem. Again, thinking through these issues helps you in so many ways. You might hit upon a solution that no one has discovered yet. You might find a solution to your own work issues and finally, you might help someone else who is dealing with the same issues. Often people are helped just by knowing that they are not alone in their problems. If you can offer some commiseration with their issues, and perhaps even a helpful solution, you can develop a great reputation as a problem solver that can lead to large opportunities down the road.
Cool things that you discover in your life and work, online and offline
Finally, one of the greatest pieces of information that you can offer is the cool things that you discover both online and in your own life. As I read through my RSS feeds each day, I often find 2-3 items that are worth sharing with others. This often results in many ‘Thank you” messages being returned as well as people sharing the information with their readers/followers/Facebook friends.
These items can take several forms. Some might simply be for entertainment (witness all the silly cat pictures out there). Some might be useful answers to business problems such as new smartphone apps, new web services and new online publications. These items also can, and should, be elements from your own life. Interesting pictures you have taken, neat templates you created, interesting architecture, music, writing and friends you encounter in your daily travels. Don’t limit yourself to just sharing things that others create. Create your own “neat things” to share, too.
If you are feeling a bit stuck on what to share via your social media feeds, I hope that these ideas will spur you into action. I believe that it is through softer sharing, rather than blatant promotion, that we can have the biggest impact on our work and careers. Rather than jumping up and down shouting “look at me, look at me”, you can have much more impact instead saying, “Look at this cool thing I found. It helped me and it might help you, too!” That is certainly how I approach my own use of social media and I believe it can be very effective in building the career you deserve.
More information on Jennifer Oliver O’Connell and Tuesdays with Transitioners:
