Bad news, You Just Got One Years Severance

Bad news, You Just Got One Years SeveranceBad news, You Just Got One Years SeveranceApproach your job search like a full-time job leid an extended vacation.Sometimes bad news comes in the prettiest packages. One of the commonest I see in the careers business is the generous severance payout. What seems like a gift from the highest graces too often turns out to be bad tidings in disguise.The severance vacation - that fools gold of time off that turns a few well-deserved weeks into several empty seasons - has led too many professionals, executives, and high-performers to mistakenly act against their own best interests.How can it be that something as seemingly non-controversial as a full years money for nothing can end up hurting you?First off, the severance vacation can lead you into a false sense of security. Ive got enough cash put away so that I dont have to worry for a while or Im in good shape so I dont need to look right away are how we hear it from our clients here at Ladders . This phony freedom from fear lulls you into believing that the future is far away. Instead of your sixth sense flashing warning signals and blaring the alarm siren, your pleasant-enough living situation inhibits you from securing your future cash flows and career prospects.That serene sense of calm is harmful.When urgency is low, and the bank account is flush, it seems theres always a good reason to spend another day contemplating instead of cold-calling. And mora time spent on the sidelines leads to ever-worse habits and rustiness. You forget the more obscure industry buzzwords. All that sun leaves you a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the tough interviews. You get softer, you get happier, you get lazier.Thats because the alternative - the job search - welcomes avoidance. The job search involves rejection, rejection involves pain, and pain is something fruchtwein of us want to experience at the gym and not carry through our waking day.The pain of the job search is th e result of how unusual the job search is relative to the rest of our lives. A job search occurs perhaps twice a decade and involves meeting a lot of strangers so that they can assess you. That the assessment is in regards to your professional ability to meet their specific, narrow, corporate need, does nothing to alleviate your feeling of being a-foot-and-a-half short of puberty and still in braces at the junior high dance. Its embarrassing.Its true, the job search is the most unusual, unnatural, unenjoyable part of our lives that is, nonetheless, unavoidable. (And avoid it, we try If Dr. Seuss were still about, he could write a book about the job search entitled Oh, the excuses youll make)So how to handle the bad news that you got a years severance?First, a lay-off notice is actually an acceptance letter for your new job - and that job is at Your Job Search, LLC with you as the President and Chief Search Officer.Youll need to negotiate a start date. Give yourself an enjoyable, bu t manageable, severance vacation one week if youre antsy, two weeks if youre bold, three weeks if you want to follow a flight of fancy.Having a tight schedule for your severance vacation will make those days of leisure sweeter for their scarcity, and allow you to tough it out in a better class of airline, hotel, or amusement park. You need to take the break you deserve and recharge your batteries.Because once you come back, your new job is full-time. Youll need to approach it with a seriousness of purpose and dedication to success befitting a professional. And your new job has just one goal getting yourself into a new seat at a new company getting paid in dollars, not promises or favors.So dont let good fortune ruin your luck. When the breaks go your way, bank your plenty rather than fritter it away, and make a timely transition into your new job-finding job.Its the best way to ensure that youll be collecting a years pay, and not a year of empty wandering.

How to Make Better Decisions at Work

How to Make Better Decisions at WorkHow to Make Better Decisions at WorkDecisions are at the center of all of ur daily managerial and leadership activities. Some decisions are fairly easy theres a policy in place that dictates the correct option given a set of circumstances. Others, including choices surrounding direction, problem-solving and investment are less programmed or structured and generally involve higher stakes. It is this latter grouping of unstructured issues that test your abilities as a decision maker and impacts your ultimate success as a manager. Get these issues right mora often than not, and you prosper. Get them wrong too often, and those responsible for selecting you for added responsibilities will lose faith and look to individuals they can trust with the big decisions. Here are seven ideas you can use immediately to strengthen your handling of difficult decisions. 7 Ideas to Support Your Development as a Great Decision Maker 1. Beware allowing emotions t o unduly influence your decisions. Emotions and big, complex decisions do not mix. They either motivate a rush to judgment or slow our process down to a crawl. When we are feeling pressured, our logical brain is in the background while the rest of our gray matter works overtime to figure out how to move beyond the stress. Guidance If the situation is emotionally turbocharged, resist the rush to decide and step back and gain some help in looking at the problem and options objectively. Use the tools outlined below to help reframe and assess your options and expectations. 2. Do not focus on a single positive or negative frame. Research shows that when facing the same problem described as either a positive or a negative, we will make different decisions. It pays to look for solutions to complex problems from multiple angles by adjusting your framing. Guidance Use multiple frames and strive to develop independent decisions for each frame. For example, if a competitor makes a bold ne w move in the marketplace, you might perceive this as a big negative for your firm. This frame might demand a me-too response. Instead, reframe the issue to indicate that the competitor has chosen to focus in this new area and will be less able to invest in or respond to your moves in other areas. Your challenge is now to identify tauglichkeit areas of opportunity that the competitors move has left uncovered. Framing makes a difference. 3. Cultivate a trust but verify relationship with data. While we all talk about data-driven decisions, we must beware anchoring on only the data that supports our position and ignoring other data or, drawing imperfect inferences from the limited data in front of us. And of course, the quality and reliability of the data should always be questioned. Guidance Resist simply drawing on the data in front of you and ask What data do I/we need to make this decision? Search for data that sheds light on the issue, regardless of whether it supports or ref utes a direction. Ask for help to evaluate the completeness and objectivity of the data, and encourage others to challenge your inferences to minimize the chances of you selectively interpreting the information. 4. Beware the decision-traps, particularly in group settings. Wherever humans gather, we bring our biases, histories, and values to bear on our thinking. Power structure or personality issues in a group setting can suppress open dialog. Groups are prone to falling in love with their solution, suppressing objective and outside views. The theory suggests that a group should be able to make a decision superior to that of the smartest individual in the group. However, there are more than a few complex human behaviors that get in the way of this ideal but noble outcome. Guidance Get help. Invite an objective outsider to monitor group conversations, challenge assumptions and identify potentialprocess pitfalls. This simple step is often ignored, yet it is low-cost and can pote ntially keep you and your team from stepping off a decision cliff. 5. Beware the tendency to reverse decisions too easily. While adjusting a decision based on lessons learned or the availability of new and compelling evidence is appropriate, too many managers fall victim to self-doubt or the continued lobbying efforts of others. Change course too frequently and the stress and frustration on your team will rise. Guidance Use a decision journal and capture in long form, the issue, the frame(s), the assumptions, the expectations and the time-frame for evaluating results. Have the individuals involved in the decision-making process sign the log It is amazing how firm a decision becomes when you have to sign a document indicating that you agree with the decision. And of course, make certain that there is a change-management process in placeif events truly necessitate a course adjustment. 6. Learn from prior decisions and keep improving. Approach strengthening your decision-making capabilities like you would your fitness program, by evaluating progress and outcomes and adjusting your future behaviors accordingly. GuidanceKeep a personal decision-journal in addition to the group journal suggested above. Make it a practice to regularly return to this journal and compare outcomes versus expectations. If they differ materially, re-examine your assumptions. Look for flaws in your thinking or problems with data. Take the time to reflect on lessons learned. Jot down how you will improve the process the next time you face a similar decision. 7. Teach your team to make better decisions. We live and work in a world of projects and teams, and effective managers invest time in helping their teams learn to effectively navigate the sticky decision-related issues they encounter. Guidance All of the lessons above apply to groups. Teach your teams how to use multiple frames how to assess data needs and how to evaluate data integrity. Teach them to avoid the traps by involv ing objective outsiders and require them to log decisions and expectations. If the team will exist for more than the duration of an individual project, hold the team accountable for assessing and measurably strengthening decision-making effectiveness over time. The Bottom-Line for Now Decisions give life to actions, and as the late management guru, Peter Drucker suggested, actions in the present are the one and only way to create the future. In my experience, managers who deliberately work on strengthening their decision-making effectiveness, prosper. Not only do they make the big decisions that set actions in motion, but they develop a batting average that impresses bosses and earns added responsibilities. Quit winging your decisions and implement a deliberate process to make more effective decisions and to strengthen your effectiveness over time.

Updating an Old Resume Lose the Objective and Duties

Updating an Old Resume Lose the Objective and DutiesResume Updates - No Objective or DutiesUpdating an Old Resume Lose the Objective and DutiesYouve been working steadily for the past 10 to 20 years, so you havent needed a resume since the 90s. Lucky you But fast-forward to today Youre facing a job change and you have no clue where your resume is. Did it vaporize in the great laptop crash of 06? Is it stored on a 3-1/2 inch floppy in your attic? No idea? Lets just say you need to start over. First, there are two rather significant changes you need to know aboutEmployers no longer want to read about your career objective.Theyre notlage too interested in all your past job duties, either.Here are the modern substitutes for these formerly standard resume elements.OLD WAYStart with an Objective NEW WAYStart with a Summary of QualificationsREASON Meeting your career objective is up to you. Dont use that valuable spot at the top of the page to talk about what youre looking for in a job. Ins tead, get the hiring manager interested in your resume by summarizing whats in it for them. Write a strong but brief summary of what makes you a great candidate for the job. Include such things as your total years of relevant experience, the skills and accomplishments that match the job youre targeting, and any impressive facts that differentiate you from the rest of the candidate pool.OLD WAY List past job duties or responsibilities.NEW WAY Describe on-the-job accomplishments, achievements, and results.REASON Listing what you were supposed to do doesnt tell the hiring manager anything unique about you, your abilities, or the quality of your work. Instead, focus on what you did, how you did it, and how it helped the employer. Show that you understand what it takes to make a business successful. Help them picture you in the new role.For example, if the job description asks for someone who can do employee training, you might think youve got it covered because your resume says, Trained new employees. OK, thinks the reader, howd that work out for you (more to the pointhowd that work out for your employer)? Rather than simply stating the duty, think about what you really did and accomplished, and express it more like thisCustomized new-hire training to address individual learning styles Established mentoring program to untersttzungsangebot new employees for 6 weeks, cutting annual turnover 40%. These are just a couple of the changes that have taken place in the resume world since the 90s. But dont worry about learning them all. Just think like a hiring manager, tell the truth, leave out the irrelevant details, and make sure every word on your resume supports your qualifications for the job youre targeting. And if youre smart, youll build and save your resume on the web (using a tool like the Resume Builder) where it will be accessible wherever and whenever you need it in the future.