Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Personal Brands: Craziest Advice Ever

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

644397_burzaWhy do job coaches tell you to EVADE a straightforward answer when a recruiter asks you this simple question?

“What do you expect to earn in terms of salary and related compensation, given the role and responsibilities associated with this position in our company?”

  1. Job coaches earn money for coaching you to get a job, but lose their income stream if you actually land a job.
  2. It’s been a long time since job coaches have succeeded in a job interview much less held a job, so they are giving you advice from the 1980’s.
  3. You appear to be a turnip living off nutrients from the soil, rather than a person seeking employment.

Would anybody who cared about you tell you to wear a funny hat to an interview?

Go naked?

Eat a Philly cheese steak during the interview?

Make sure to bring up your thoughts on Warren Beatty’s daughter getting a sex change (unless you are applying for a medical job, in which case they counsel you to talk about the need to re-cane all the chairs you have hoarded in your parents’ garage)?

Or tell you to do everything you can to avoid answering a simple question, which would show you:

  1. Came prepared to land the job
  2. Done research on the company and compensation for the job in its sector
  3. Understand your value and the value of your skill set

Clearly, I am puzzled by the rash of sort of angry diatribes from coaches who last week responded to my post by defending why they counsel you to think of money as a roadside bomb.

Here’s the truth. Employers are actively seeking employees who can help move their companies in a direction of growth (or stability).  They want sincere, straightforward communicators with integrity. They want to avoid hiring people who are:

  1. Crazy
  2. Liars
  3. Difficult to get along with

They want people who are:

  1. Honest
  2. Team players
  3. Good at what they do

In my post last week, I recommended you come prepared to answer the compensation question. Maybe that’s why CNBC called me their top job coach. Jeri Hird Dutcher agrees, and she is a super career coach with great strategies to help you get ahead.

On the other hand, among the comments from my post last week, I am glad to have drawn fire from other coaches whom you may hire if you want to dance like a gargoyle in your next interview.

It seems that if you are seeking an employer who likes obfuscation, frustration, and irrational chatter about simple things, there is a preponderance of coaches who can help you engage in the kind of dialogue that starts you off on the left foot, on the wrong beat.

Alternatively, when you want a great job with a great employer and a great start on a great relationship that will lead to great opportunities for greater challenges and greater income, then just answer the question when it’s asked.

“What do you expect to earn in terms of salary and related compensation, given the role and responsibilities associated with this position in our company?”

I urge you:

  1. Do your research so you know the company and compensation range
  2. Know what you are worth and the best way to articulate that
  3. Come prepared to be hired!

Angry, defensive, and personal attacks should follow in the comment section below.

Visit at www.workwrite.net

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

Personal Brands: Stop Lying

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010

You know who you are.

You tell us you will get it done – and you don’t.

You tell us you got it done – and you didn’t.

You tell us where you will be – and you are not.

You tell us you understand the situation and are prepared – and you haven’t given it a thought.

You tell us you used airline miles, when you actually put it on the company credit card.

You say you will be back to relieve someone else on their shift, but somehow traffic delayed you – again.

First you are informally demoted when someone else has to be brought in to do the mission critical portion of your job. Then, you are angry and irritable about feeling “underutilized,” so you lose your job. You have a tower of accusations or excuses. To us, your family and friends, your defenses actually are credible the first and second time.  After all, there really are impossible jobs with terrible bosses, and good people get fired. But, the baseball rule (three strikes and you’re found out) solves the puzzle of what you say happened versus what really happened.

Three of the best liars I know are able to look me straight in the eye and lie without blinking. They’re also performance artists: they cry real easily or get angry when they’re called out. They wonder aloud why no one trusts them. How could their character be so impugned? Why do we keep reminding them of what needs to be done? Why do we keep seeking assurances that it’s been done?

When lying is part of your personal brand, part of how you cope or how you roll, you are eventually exposed and everyone around you is exhausted from working with you – or accommodating you.

The path of destruction

The path of your destruction: the missed deadlines, the thrown together projects, and the loss of our time, money and opportunity hang like a shroud around you. The anxiety about what will be done, what will not be done, what will be half done and what will be undone but lay undiscovered for months so destroys our relationship with you, that any other amazing contribution you make has no appreciable value.

Lying is so stupid and debilitating to your career, that it’s most shocking when a smart, confident and ambitious person does it. It’s stupid because you lose all credibility, trust, respect and regard from the rest of us. No matter what other qualities you have, being a liar defines you.

Whether you lie reliably (about pretty much everything) or intermittently (which really destabilizes our relationship with you), just quit it. Cold turkey. People quit smoking, drinking, overeating, biting their nails, creating clutter, and a whole host of other self-destructive habits in service of self-actualization.

Consider that lying is a career-ending pattern for you. It’s disrespectful and disruptive to society – even if that society is just your workplace.

If you know me, you know I am Dr. Seuss’ Heloise the elephant. “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s true 100%.”

And I recognize that no one on earth is able to perform 100% on any given day. I suffer from making the same mistakes and experiencing the accidents of life just like everyone else. So, this isn’t a diatribe about your computer really crashing, a family member really falling ill or a sudden detour sign taking you off route.

It’s about the truth and our trust.

Let sleeping dogs lie. You keep your word.

Note to other elephants: Consider sharing this post by email with the people who lie to you. Subject line: “Can you believe this?”

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

Ten Commandments of Personal Branding – #7: Think Themes Not Words

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Giant WheelWho are you? You are a theme. You are one unified, coherent, understandable and consistent presence – if you are successfully branding yourself with your network, both real and cyber.

You can’t be all things to all people. You must be one distinguishable thing to your tribe. If you don’t choose, your tribe will assign a theme to you. Sociologically we cannot live among each other, without labeling.

You know this. You have that crazy friend, the boring one, the smart one, and the one who always knows what club is happening.  Most people didn’t sign up for the label they live with. Their bad.

Regular people live their lives and let others brand them. People like you, living with intention, making their mark indelibly, choose a theme. You must choose an authentic one – and use it in every communication, conversation, presentation and meeting.

Consider these, they may help you self-diagnose:

#1 Courageous, adventurous, brave and daring
#2 Encouraging, joyful, uplifting and fun
#3 Gracious, generous, giving, and thoughtful
#4 Funny, quick-witted, sardonic and comedic
#5 Current, hip, in-the-know and happening

Consider who’s who in a new partnership

Courage is the guy who puts his money down to jumpstart the deal. Encouraging is the guy who inspires others to contribute. Gracious is the person accepting the funds and thanking everyone for their efforts. Funny is the one who lightens the mood when the going gets tough. Current is the one who knows exactly where to spend the profits.

If you think you’re all of these themes, you’re going to have to spend some time alone, because no – you’re not all things to all people.

Ask yourself:

If you were with Gilligan, lost on an island with people who don’t know you well – what traits would undoubtedly define your attitude and interactions with them? That’s who you are. It may not be who you want to be. So act accordingly, or rather change your act accordingly.

When you like what you see, go ahead and let the world know.

Who are you?

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

Employment Odds Favor Social Media Addicts

Friday, July 31st, 2009

Job Market is Sweet if You Can Tweet

(As of today, a bounty of tweets have appeared on my latest article, carried by numerous online and conventional media. Lots came from huliq.com, linked here, in case you’d like to see it there. Forgive the third person reference to myself in this blog post – it’s taken directly from an article.)

It pays to be a regular user of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Employers are searching for people who are “addicted” to these sites, because social media is the cheapest and most effective way for brands to build their reputations. Your odds of getting a job simply because you can use Twitter are fantastic: 69% of Americans don’t even know what Twitter is, according to a new LinkedIn/Harris poll. That cuts down the number of people you’re competing with.

Just this morning on a popular job board, a search for “twitter” popped up over 7,500 social media openings, with annual salaries ranging from $30,000 to $110,000. “Career coaches have always counseled job-hunters to improve their communication skills, but now we’re training people to how to tell a story in 140 characters or less,” reports Nance Rosen, a social media expert who coaches companies and employees on business communication.

Rosen is adamant that even if spending your day making friends and gaining followers is not your idea of a dream job, social media prowess may still be the critical factor in your winning or losing a job. Employers want every employee to do more than the job they’re assigned.

“Accounting, technology and administrative people are human assets, that must be multi-functional in order to be attractive right now. Like a photocopier that also faxes and scans, an employee who can talk up the company favorably on blogs or forums is more desirable than one who can’t,” Rosen says.

By using keywords to search any social media site, it’s easy for employers to see who’s talking about the topics that matter to them. As Rosen says, successful job hunters don’t fritter away the opportunity to make a good impression. They use Twitter to get ahead.

Tips for job hunters on Twitter

1. Identify the companies you’d like to work for, and tweet news about them.
2. Quote the companies’ CEOs or respond to their tweets, using the @ sign along with the CEOs’ Twitter.
3. Re-tweet news about the company or industry.

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

An Interview with the San Francisco Chronicle

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Are you committing career suicide on Twitter and Facebook? Seriously. If you’re a “fan” of sleep or “Dopey” in the Snow White Dwarf quiz, you’re not putting your best foot forward on Facebook. Beyond the obvious: companies really care how many friends or Twitter followers you have – because they are looking for people with a sphere of influence. Reporter Benny Evangelista did a great job of pulling lots of social media secrets from me. From the article:

Social media tips when you’re laid off

  • Set up a blog and Twitter account so recruiters can find you and know you’re up-to-speed on social media skills. Post short notes with links to industry news. Re-tweet comments from people whom you admire – they’ll hear about it.
  • Participate in LinkedIn discussions and pose questions on discussion boards. Recruiters are watching for smart people with good communication skills.
  • Don’t post “job needed, desperate!” Do post attention-grabbing questions such as, “What’s the best business advice you’ve ever received?”

Need a job? Show them you can Twitter

Need a job? Show them you can Twitter

Read the whole article “Need a job? Show them you can Twitter” in the SF Chronicle.

gb62dr94xh

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

A conversation with MediaPost about Twitter.

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Picture 2MediaPost – THE industry trade publication for advertising and branding, asked for my insights on how big brands see social media in their Online Media Daily, and how your skill set changes your fortune in the job market. Thank you to reporter Laurie Sullivan for a crisp but powerful piece.

From the article:

Looking for a job in online social marketing? It’s not what you know. It’s the number of Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and connections on other social network sites that matter, according to Nance Rosen.

Rosen, career coach extraordinaire and CEO of Pegasus Media World, a communications firm focusing on publishing, social media and seminars, told Online Media Daily that brands looking to hire marketing professionals want “influencers,” “connectors” and “mavens” — people that others turn to for information, news and trends…

You can read the whole article Is Twitter A Job Qualification #FAIL? at the Online Media Daily website!

mediapostnews

gb62dr94xh

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

The Best Way to Procrastinate: Productively

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

There’s this adage: “if you have something that must get done, give it to a busy person.” I hate that adage, because I am a busy person. The adage makes me feel like the butt of some psychic joke. I often wonder why I’m good about being busy, why it is so fulfilling to do a lot. Tonight, as I am implementing David Allen’s GTD system (as I have been for 6 months), which manifests my cult-like love for personal productivity, I keep interrupting my own work with other work (that is also mine by varying degrees of “mine-ness”). Library of SuccessI have levels of relationships to my work like Dante has circles of hell.  At the center, there’s my never-stop-burning urge to transfer everything I know to anyone who could use it. If you read my first book, Speak Up & Succeed: you know that 1.5 pounds was just breaking a sweat on the deep dive into business communication that I want to you to take with me. So deep, that just to keep my lungs from bursting, Pegasus Media World just released my ebook: Library of Success, which is a wiki of every possible piece of content you can bring into a meeting. I owe big thanks to Molly Jo Rosen for her contribution to that, and a note to my book design team to give her credit. That is the great thing about eBooks: you can make a much-needed correction without burning 25,000 books.

But, I digress. I wanted to tell you that the secret to my success is: I have so much to do that procrastination looks like productivity. When I want to drag my heels on prepping for a media interview, I can mind-map a client’s product portfolio. When I want to delay producing my newsletter, I can answer a reporter’s request for an expert on producing small company events cheaply in Texas. Yes, I get very detailed requests because part of my job is to know the world’s most important people. If I’m home so my staff can get work done in the morning, I can clip Mo’s dog’s nails instead of completing an RFP. When I’m procrastinating, a lot gets done. Sunday night, our house became gluten-free, ahead of my sorting through the weekend’s email.

So I think the key to productivity is procrastination. If you always have a lot to do, there’s always something you can stick ahead of what you simply don’t want to do. Except when the fire feels really hot – because you’re hurtling into the brick wall of a hard and fast deadline, can’t you hear the angels sing? On a wing and a prayer.

What are you waiting on?

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share

Secrets Revealed: How to Get Back in the Fast Lane

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

I talk to the media at least four times a week, oftentimes much, much more. I do that on behalf of Pegasus Media World authors and experts, as well as myself. So it’s unusual for me to “cotton” to a program host because, like meeting members of the press during movie junkets, some of their questions are repeats from past performances. Lately, the interviewers and journalists have been fantastic. They are coming to me with such surprising angles and topics, from “how has social media corrupted the work environment?” to “how does a company keep employees engaged during down time?” So, if you’ve watching ABC’s coverage, the New York Times and other outlets, you know I definitely have something to say about communication and the workplace. What’s been the most impressive is how in-depth the reporters are going, plus the quality of experts they are accessing and the accuracy with which my comments have been quoted. I really appreciate the curiosity they have, and how that translates to a more engaged and informed audience for their work. Recently I was delighted to be the only guest for Bill Horan’s Secrets of Success radio program in New York. He is a great example of the media I’ve been meeting. He’d read my entire book, researched my topic and had some zingers in his very challenging questions. We got so much feedback on the quality of information that I wanted to share it with you. You’ll get the fastest, most usable input for putting yourself higher up on the career ladder (or industry ranking for your business), than I’ve ever been able to deliver. A big thank you to Bill for the opportunity to go so deep in such a short time.

Hear it here: http://bit.ly/SLpn

More from Nance…

You can find Nance on
Facebook
LinkedIn
Twitter

Share