Credibility...

 

Follow-through. Whether you are making a commitment to a customer, sponsor or friend, spouse or neighbor, follow through with your commitments. We often hear about that one person who can talk a big talk, and fail to walk that talk. Your credibility relies on your ability to deliver on all commitments, not one or two, but all. Now we all know that things fall between the cracks, but make thats an exception rather than the rule. You will be surprised at the response from the people that cheer you on….. Jeff Arnold

Career Growth

This is 2010, and there are so many companies acquiring other companies to stay alive and relevent.  This occurs for several reasons, but mostly because someone has something that the other one wants, products, patents, people, services, you name it.  But what does that do for the people being acquired, it leaves anxiety and stress for among several things a possible loss of job or status.  What is the best way to address this anxiety and stress?
I have gone through this a couple of times myself, and talked with hundreds if not thousands of people that are going through an acquisition of some sort.  Here is my recommendation:
Get on board or move on.
I know this sounds harsh, but the simple fact is no matter what the executive’s telll you to keep you calm, you will end up doing what the parent company wants to do.  Do they listen to you, maybe, while they decide to take your advice and manage differently, I doubt it.
Make no mistake, at any level below executive VP, your life and job will change drastically. 
The best message I can help you with is how to best deal with it.  I suggest getting rid of everything you have from your previous company, hats, shirts, plaques, anything with the logo on it.  Get them out of your entire work environment and replace them with trinkets from your new company.  Even go to the company store and purchase items with their logo on it and spread then throughout your work environment.  You will start to be viewed as an insider, one of “them”, someone that has embraced the change and is on board with the new company’s   vision. Believe me when I say these people are always seem to make it through these transitions, even improving their career.
I know of people that could have never made a director or Sr. Manager in their old company have been elevated to these positions simply because they are part of the “in-crowd” during the transition.  Is this fair, no, but it is perception.

Once again, Get on board or move on….

Career Growth

One would think that motivation and unemployment would not be used in the same positive sentence.    The loss is terrible, no doubt but the opportunities unemployment can offer are also very wide.  You should look at this time as a time for reflecting on your life, career and family.  For starters, is the town you want to live in? Is this the career, industry or level of career you want to pursue?  Take inventory and start dreaming of your most favorable job that is within reach.  Once you have thought of several hundred job opportunities, narrow the list down to two or three. Then identify what area you want to live in, now is the time to ready for a move south if it fits your needs.  If not you’re already where you are supposed to be.   Thinking about these changes and designing your new life is a very motivating thing.

After you have determined your destiny, now block 3 to 4 hours a day Monday through Friday dedicated to online job searching.  This can be searching for companies that you want to work for, job boards, resume and cover letter research etc.  The main idea here is to get into the hunt, but don’t overdo it.

With the remaining 4 hours of your non-work day focus on your hobbies and area’s that you can venture yourself into as a new business.  There is nothing like going to work doing something you love to do so much you do it on your spare time.   As you inventory your options focus on skills that have a profitable capability like woodworking, handy work, sewing, painting and other skills that you enjoy to do, identify local opportunities to market your services or products.  In this market, there are plenty of opportunities.  Start by selling at a farmers market, city parade, through friends or even through the internet.  Don’t get too big too fast though; organic growth is very important when kicking off a new business.  Look further on this site for how to capitalize on your homemade skills.  For god sake, a lady once made over $2M marketing crick shoes with Mr. potato head parts stuffed into them.  They started out as a project for her daughter, and then spread to her friends, their friends and then the Internet, you never know.

Use this time from your regular career to stay busy and productive.  A balance of job searching, Skill inventory and exploiting, book writing, and other activities will keep you productive and positive as you search your new career.

When all else fails, talk to the career coach at www.dearcareercoach.com to see if he can provide specific ideas that fit your needs.

Happy Hunting.

Jeff Arnold
www.procareerimage.com

Career Growth

Career marketing companies prey on people that are looking to enhance their career opportunities, often looking like a hiring employer on job sites and newspapers, just to find out they are really pay-for-coaching.  These companies will lure you in and present you with an understanding of your business as well as a ‘promise’ of helping you find that perfect job, and even provide part of the payment only after you reach a high salary level, in all it sounds pretty good.  Think about it, if you pay $5800 for a job that pays $10K more annually, it’s a pretty good opportunity.

First let me say I have no commercial ties in this industry, so this is a non-biased opinion.
Every perfect opportunity has both pros and cons to the offer.  Easy street is not on a map, it’s in your head.  Always beware of too-good-to-be-true offers.  Let’s look at some of the negative aspects of this types of service.
First, the company will ask you to fill out a long introduction of yourself and all of your experience back to your paper route days, very frustrating and time consuming for someone in their mid career.  The most fruitful activity is networking, and after you get your elevator speech together, they make you focus on the obvious, your personal and professional network.  I thought these folks would be introducing me around, I have already fished this spot before, and had I been successful, I wouldn’t need their services.  They also are heavily into cold calling executives, and I know that if I got a cold call I wouldn’t have much time for the person since I am busy and I have an HR team for that.  My experience was grueling and frustrating, but in the end there were positives.
The positive aspects came to me about half way through the experience.  I played their game but just couldn’t see the light, so I took charge.  I felt I had to take control of my destiny and I have some professional help at my beck and call, already paid for.  I thought about my resume, and the resume they made for me was OK, but didn’t tell a hiring manager I was special.  I come up with theme based resume’s and after explaining the change in plans, the marketing company took the lead and focused several people on my different resume’s.  I had a Professional general manager, project manager and technical operations resume designed so I could be better represented in my job search based on the opportunity.  Second we customized the cover letters, delivery vehicle and several other things.  The best thing was that I could call the shots and had a full time staff to help me move it along.  Once this happened we began making progress.  I practiced my interviews with them, they gave me great feedback.  They had a vested interest in honest feedback.  I also got some pretty GREAT web sites to find employers that were not advertising, but I thought they needed help because of the new contracts I saw in the paper (which they pointed out).  Together as a team, focused in the direction I thought I would be most successful, we quickly got offers, then one came that I liked and the pay was more than I expected.

All in all I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get where I am today if I didn’t use this “Pay for “service.  They provided the exact help I needed and were flexible enough to customize my program.  If faced with that situation again, I would do it again.

 

Jeff Arnold
www.procareerimage.com

Career Growth