Everyone is an Entrepreneur. How high is your stock?

August 25, 2007

Why some people are so successful and other aren’t? Even when the last has more to offer than the first? Why super talented people don’t achieve their goals and totally morons get all the promotions?

The way I see it, the same rules in the enterprise space apply in the individual space, some companies have good products, some individuals have amazing skills and talents, some companies promote their products, some individuals actively promote themselves. Sometimes there is too much marketing and we know nothing is behind (for both, companies and individuals) sometimes we find a hidden gem. There is a strong relationship between strategies for building a great company and personal success.

Of course there are differences, companies usually have more individuals under one common goal, they don’t have feelings and remorse but most importantly, they know that in order to be successful you need to do certain things. Individuals on the other hand don’t do all this things, they tend to relay on luck, divinity, mother nature or random events to be successful and only dedicate time to a very few significant strategies, like choosing a school, a degree or a job, but for the rest is “go with the flow” mode.

Many successful people know this, they have a personal vision and mission, they have a set of values, they know what their strengths and weaknesses are and what to do with them, they know what their personal brand is, how to sell themselves and most importantly they do it. They do it all the time, they don’t really need to dedicate too much time now, after years of practice, it’s now part of their DNA. That is what differentiates them with the average guy, that is one of the main reasons of their success (sometimes luck also plays its part ;-)).

To get there, they needed a bunch of trainings, books, self awareness, thinking, planning and other activities that during a lifetime built a successful individual (like a company).  It was hard work, but it paid off. But the hardest part, without questions, was to start that path.

Socrates said “I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.” and that is an amazing accomplishment, most of the people, don’t even know, that they don’t know. In my first years heading my software company, I had no idea of all the things that I didn’t know and therefore I never did anything to learn them, I perpetuated my ignorance in a spiral of self comfort. The moment I started realizing exactly the gap between the ideal executive and me, the moment I started closing the gap. A simple but powerful idea, and maybe the first and one of my most powerful AHA moments.

After reading this, if I was successful you are flirting with the idea that it would be great to know the gap between yourself and the ideal benchmark in your field (of course, in your case is almost cero J).

Let’s channel that thought to take the next step

What is the ideal state of yourself? When would you say you succeeded? What is it that you want from life? In other words, how would you know you succeeded if you don’t look how success looks like?

Common first answers are, I will succeed when I win the lottery (ok, maybe not that common), when I have money, when I get a better job, when I am like X person or when I am retired. But many of them only address a partial criteria (money, job, time) and may leave other important criteria outside (family, spirituality, etc.) and most of the time, the first round of answers are symptoms of the deeper real needs.

When talking about success we need to understand all the important things in our life, meaning professional success, personal success, success as a mother, as a important leader in the community. Words like legacy, mark on the world and others also fit in here. So first of all clarify what is success for you.

A useful exercise is to write your obituary (creepy but useful), write half a page of what you imagine the people said about you. What were the words used to describe you. This will give you an idea on what is it that you want (what do you want your brand to be, what is your legacy, what success looks like, etc.)

Another exercise is to list what is important to you, family, money, career, traveling, etc. and after doing this list as a column, write down, why (I sometimes say I need money, but I what I really want is to have freedom, so I can do whatever I want therefore I really mean freedom, not money). And if it’s possible, make another Colum with a why of the why (why do I want freedom?), keep going until you distilled a few ruling principles.

The third exercise is to review this list of values, and select half of them, the ones that resonate more in your head when you read them, then take this sub list and cut it in half, then again, half, until you get around 10.

These three exercises (obituary, list of important things, and selection from the values list) should have a lot in common; they reflect your essence, your core, your values.

Distilling from there should be very easy, you just take the top 5 words (not be too literal, some values need 2 or 3 words, but most don’t). That list is the magic list of your top 5 values; you have just build the first piece of your company marketing strategy. You have identified your values.

As an example, let me share my values: Happiness, Freedom, Power, Intelligence and Love. You understand a lot about me by reading these 5 words.

Let me elaborate on why they are important:

Happiness: I think that happiness is the ultimate goal in life, not only my personal happiness, but the happiness of my loved ones, like my wife. So every time I need to choose, I consider this.

Freedom: This connects to many things, intellectual freedom, economical freedom (money), freedom to choose, to think and others. I respect diversity and if you take away my freedom, you will see the worst of me. (pretty useful to know what are the values of someone right? You know what their triggers are …)

Power: I want to have the power to achieve happiness and freedom, this also connect with money but also with personal influence, skills, networks, etc. I like to do, to respond, to change the world.

Intelligence: I give an unfair deal of importance to intelligence, (before you apply psychology 101 on me let me disclose it myself, I know its connected to the fact I feel I have it and I want to think I am special for that), but I use it, and I approach people who uses it too.

Love: I love and I want to be loved, I also submit many decisions to the loving muscle in my brain. I love my wife, my family, my friends but I also love other things, I connect this to being happy.

After distilling from the 3 previous exercises you should have your list of 5 top values, and your reasons and connections (who am I kidding, most people won’t have the list, I didn’t provoked the aha moment in them, but at least, when they reach it, they may connect what I just described and use it, not everyone is ready at the same time…).

The more advanced ones, even build a list of roles they have (wife, father, teacher, professional, etc.), then a vision and a mission statement and revise it every year. Well, there are good book for that levels, and you should know them if you are there. So if not, you are basic like me.

Second step (after building the values): Personal brand.

It looks silly, my personal brand, jaja, like If I was a product. Well in a loose definition you are. There is a perception of you, there is a description of you, what are the 2 things your friends say when a new guy asks, who is he? Do they say, “Felipe a very smart guy that just won that competition”, or they say, “he is an arrogant guy that thinks he is the smartest guy around”? If I do a survey around your colleges, friends, family and all those who know you what will be the list of strengths and weakness they say about you? Do you even know? Well, that is the perception about you, I may not be the true, but in their eyes, perception is reality and it’s an uphill battle to change perception (just ask a company with a bad reputation). Is that perception a collection of random events? Or is a result of a dedicated effort on your part? For most, you just act and perception is formed afterwards, sometimes good (you made a great sell) sometimes bad (you were angry that day with your wife).

Here another mini aha moment should be happening, if not please let me know so I can take writing lessons J (if you are mentally reviewing what you did last days that influenced a good or bad perception you are on the money and I did my job)

The beauty is that you can control what others perceive of you, that is when you define your brand and then you communicate it. Your brand strongly connects with your values (as everything in your life, you SHOULD connect it to your values, otherwise you will do poorly, including your job and your personal life). Unless you are a branding expert you will have a hard time doing this, it’s ok, dedicate some time every now and then. Get a rough picture, you want to be perceived as the go getter, will kill you to finish the job type of guy? Will you want to be perceived as the funny, I will make you laugh when you are mad?. Here the word is consistency, to change perception (from bad to good, or from cero to something) you need to repeat and repeat (that’s why they repeat commercial in many places, so it gets engraved in your head), if you think in facial tissues, you are most likely thinking in Kleenex, that is a powerful brand, you think in soda and you go for Coke (or maybe Pepsi), etc.

In short, identify the brand you want to be known for, and then do a lot of marketing around it. I am not saying tasteless, shameless, moronic marketing, either I am not saying go and explain others your brand literally, I am saying try to connect everything you can to build value to the brand.

So you have a product (you), you have a brand, you have a set of values, now you have your company. You want to sell more (or at a better price), you know understand marketing and sales importance, you are an entrepreneur, you are the CEO of yourself. The question now is: is your stock going up or going down?

1 Comment | Blogroll, Career Development, career, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

5 really useful things you get from College that will help you get a job

August 25, 2007

We all have studied things we didn’t cared during our life, and then when we went to college we expected it was all going to be relevant to our future professional life, chances are, it was not. But that doesn’t mean higher education has no value, actually it has a lot of value, but unless you know how to capitalize it, it may just be money down the drain.

There are a few professions were this doesn’t apply, were all what you learn in college will really matter for a long time, like physicians or lawyers. But for most, it’s a different story.

If you read my Survival guide for the first years in your professional life (coming soon) you will know that there is a big disappointment moving to hit you in the face, and college for the most part didn’t prepared you for that.

So let’s see, what it is, that you will actually use from college in terms of your future career:

There are 5 key things you will need in the future: a personal brand, a personal network, ability to learn, experience and enough knowledge for your field of work to have meaningful discussions and contributions and college (or an equivalent) will help you with all of them. By the way, all the garbage that your teacher made you memorize, it’s useless, just as you expected…

A Personal Brand means how you are perceived by others (remember perception is reality in many cases), how does a group of people that knows you refers to you? Maybe they don’t even know how you are and therefore you have a very week brand, maybe they think you are the go getter, the guy that can do it and solve every problem (chances are you are not this guy, so don’t get cocky) but either way, this “brand” is a key piece in your future. So the question is how can I increase my “brand” value leveraging my college education? Well pretty easy, your schools pedigree (Harvard as an example), your grades, your knowledge and culture, your education and key activities that you did like president of a newspaper and the reputation you build during school all contribute to build your brand. Remember also that unless communicated properly these factors are useless, so some smart marketing can also help in here, read my Elegant Bragging. And you thought that being humble was going to work post (coming soon) to learn more.

A Personal Network is maybe the biggest asset you should build over time, who do you know is more important than anything else (it’s a cliché, but its true). Your friends from college will be your bosses, the employees you recruit to build a team, your network to find a job, the guys that will present you someone you need, etc. Foster and build a good network and you will harvest it for many years to come. Another way to put it is what Bill Gates said in one university years ago, be kind to the nerd next to you, he will be your boss one day.

Ability to learn is a key skill, so all the stupid things that you have learned have value, not because you will use that information, but because you exercised a muscle that you will use your entire life: how to learn new things. Using shortcuts in college like short term memorization, cheating, etc. help you in the short term, but are lost opportunities to train your capacity to learn.

Experience is in the working world what grades are in your academic studies. It’s the best proof that you know how to do something. No boss cares what your grades were in college, maybe if it was an amazing honorary degree or something very nice it can help in the Personal Branding part, but besides that, no one cares. But you can show off experiences, everyone cares if you worked as an assistant to the accountant for two years (and not if you scored 10 in accounting), especially if you can mention one or two important things you did during that time (like doing the taxes for all the 15 employees and saving them $200 USD each). Experience in college is possible but not easy, look for opportunities. You can read more on experience on Get experience without experience, break the chicken egg (coming soon).  , and on Nutshellize yourself. Telling your story to maximize your personal impact situation (coming soon)

Enough knowledge for your intended profession is indispensable, in particular you need to have the vocabulary, the communication protocols, and know how to do what you should do. For example if you have a job as a computer technician, you need to know how to use computers, know the computer related terms, how to do email and chat and finally whatever you should be doing as a technician of computers. You can get a job in something other than your field, that is pretty common, but you need to have enough knowledge to avoid looking stupid (damaging your Personal Brand) and buying enough time to learn what you need while doing something of value.

Having a Personal Network, or a good Personal Brand or any of the others does not guarantee success, but the lack of them can almost guarantee failure. Invest time to build this basic infrastructure during your years as student, but continue building them over time with each consecutive work and opportunity. If you don’t do it on time, you will end up using additional years building it and therefore delaying your professional promotions a few years until you become successful in the basics.

For the rest of the time in college, have fun, it’s going to be the last great period of your life.

Best of luck

Felipe

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Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

Strategies for Success in the academic world, non profits and other ambient than the traditional business arena

March 25, 2007

Sometimes I get a comment that some of the career strategies I describe in this blog are too oriented to the business world, and are far from reality of the academic world (and other paths like the NGO, sports, etc.). I decided to take a closer look at what the differences and similitude’s are.

It is true that I use most of my examples from the Business world, it is maybe the most common scenario and easy to grasp for everyone, but the intent of the Career Blueprints blog is to help all young adults to start or boost their careers, including careers outside the business world.

I started my career in the academic world early on, during high school I participated in the International Mathematics Olympiads (I know, quite nerdy… ) I trained for 2 years to represent my country in the WW contest, and from there my path was clear, I studied Math in the National University in my home country, Mexico (UNAM) and since the first month I was doing some research, attending congresses and taking the most advances courses, I was in an “all in” mode. I developed a close relationship with many scientists doing research I got to understand pretty well that world. Also my father has been involved in research and teaching forever (like 40 years or something) and I have meet many many PHDs both new and old. In the NGO and not for profit world I also have experience, much less than in the Academic world, but I participated in an NGO for a couple of years, since inception until it was fully operational and I have had close contact with many “nature/ecology” organizations for many years.

After a few years in the Math world I decided to make the switch to the business world (money and fame are the reasons J), first building my own company  and now in a big corporation. Let me tell you that even some pieces are different, the tools and strategies are the same. What you do to be successful is really similar and most of what I cover in this blog, applies to the academic path, the NGO path and the business path. You will need to fill a certain set of specifics that your path requires, no doubt about it, I may not be the right person to help you with that, but I am sure, that many of the tools covered here will work.

First let’s start with what is different.

In the Academic world, the weight of the “intellectual power” is slightly higher, publishing is a measure of success, advanced studies (like master or PhD) are a must, jobs are a little bit more “secure” and rotation of jobs is smaller.

In the NGO and not for profit world its basically the same than the business world but the objective of the organization, so passion for the cause is more important and in many cases, they are slightly more tolerant to personal mistakes.

Besides a couple of things I am sure I forgot, the three worlds are very similar in many aspects, all paths give a great deal of importance to reputation, past achievements, relationships and networks. You get a compensation (I don’t mean money exclusively) and you add value to the organization, either in the form of a marketing plan, a group of students trained in calculus or raising 100,000USD in donations in an event, you get something and you give something. You want to get more (again, can be money, can be recognition, can be saving the rainforest) in that deal, and you know you have to give more to get it (more can mean more time, but can also mean other things, like less time doing more impactful things). You want to raise the ranks and fulfill your dreams. These are universal structures of human nature, as always with any generalization, there are exceptions and deviations, but for most of us, they are true at least.

That is why many resources to be successful in business are in reality general, they apply to the academic and NGO worlds (and sports, and others). The reason they look very businesslike is money. There is a hungry audience willing to pay. But that doesn’t mean an academic can follow tips to build a resume, define a personal brand, have a successful interview or any other tip in the blog, it only means, they have to add a tailoring to it to fit the protocols and expectations of that mini universe.

I think that under this perspective, the importance is in the individual awareness, development and knowledge of your own objectives, strengths, weaknesses and others related things, instead of the specific path he or she is following. That is the last mile of customatization, and that, that is up to you to add.

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Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

Is Generation Y doomed? How to save yourself

March 11, 2007

You know the feeling, most of your friends and maybe even you are facing a tough reality, so many people is going back to live with their parents because they can’t pay a rent, or they live with 2 or 3 other friends to share the expenses. We come out prepared, with a lot of studies and energy, we breadth technology, we have good ideas and yet, there is not enough room for all of us. An entire generation is fighting to survive.

What is Generation Y you ask? I really don’t like being  tagged as Generation Y, I mean, it translates literally as “the guys after the uninteresting Generation X” and that is not flattering… there are other terms like the Millennials, iGeneration or the Net Generation but unfortunately they are not widespread so I will have to use that term, deal with it.

In a nutshell you are part of the Generation Y if you are less than 30 and you are not a kid, it can vary depending on your country , but roughly that’s it, the young adults of today. Your parents are usually Baby Boomers, a very strong generation that was able to provide a lot to their kids, we had better education than in any point in history, computers since you were a kid, we can multitask (doing many things at once), I mean, we look great on paper!.

What went wrong? Well a combination of several things, first old guys live longer now, so they work more years, so they occupy the seat more time. Second our generation is maybe the first with a strong representation of women, so now for the first time, it’s not only men fighting for the job. Third many parents did their best to provide us with strong educations, so there is a lot of people with college and even higher studies. When you add it up it means too much demand for a job offering that can keep the pace (hold your flames for a moment, as a disclaimer: I think it’s great that seasoned people can work longer and that women can compete with equal rights, what sucks is that opportunities don’t grow as fast as we need).

What can we do? As in any other Darwinian situation its survival of the fittest, so you need to have a good strategy from the start, something that will let you apart of the rest, here are some ideas:

Lots of experience: This is the typical chicken egg situation. Most people will go to the first job interview and face the hard question, do you have experience? (you think “no, this is my first job, what did you expected?”), as the answer is mostly no, you become a risk that not all companies want.  How can you counter this? Find opportunities to get experience in the fields that you want early on, if you can during college. It doesn’t matter if they are greatly paid or interesting; it’s part of the training. This is the strategy I choose, I am almost 30 and I have 13 years of professional experience.

Top grades: Top grades students are recruited by some companies into special programs to build future leaders, the problem is that unless your school happens to be in their radar, they will miss you. So you need to be proactive before graduating if possible. Find out how is shopping and engage.

Start low, grow fast: This is one of the most popular strategies, you take something small, and you expect that delivering great results you will shine and grow on the organization, the big problem is that most people think that great results will come because they are great (I know in your case its true, you are the smartest guy around… but the problem is that everyone thinks the same…). And on top of that, sometimes, even if you deliver great results, some organizations will not respond as you expected.

Build a network: A different approach is to build early on a reputation and a network, and expect that someone will bring you in. It’s like fishing. It’s important to have both pieces, a good reputation, that means you are seen as trusted and hard working AND a network of people that you think have good chances to grow fast, either because of their family or their brains.

A combination of strategies that suit you is best. It doesn’t matter which ones you choose, the most important thing you should you, (I left it to the end so only if you read everything you get it J) is this:

There is a big gap between You out of school, and the You that a company would like. BIG.

This means that you don’t have the set of abilities that will make you successful professionally, you may have some from college or your masters degree, but trust me, you don’t have the complete set. It gets worst; you may even not discovering that, so you have done nothing to remediate it. Until now.

I built this blog as one of the pieces of a bigger strategy to help my generation remediate that, I am trying to concentrate all the best practices that other successful young adults have and share them. That is the objective of Career Blueprints for a new generation. Invest some time reading the articles and subscribe to the RSS feed to stay updated, I will try to make it fun but either way, it will be realistic, useful and life changing, I put my word on that. Send your comments to help me shape it.

Help me change our Generation perspectives, spread the word.

Felipe

3 Comments | Career Development, career, personal skills, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

Rewire your brain, dont be a caterpillar

March 11, 2007

In work as in our personal life we sometimes tend to let the old habits rule our behavior, for comfort we tend to codify certain responses into our “nervous system” and they become almost reflexes, that is what Stephen Covey would call Reacting (vs. Proactive) as his 1st habit of highly effective people (amazon).

 A common example is when someone says a critique about our work, some people tend to think: this guys made a critique of my project, therefore he is insulting my intelligence, click, whirl, snap, I am very angry now at him and I should get even. Pure primitive reactions that get in the way. I describe some of the aspects of this in the 4 steps to talk to unreasonable (read stupid) people.

These responses help us save some time thinking, and were especially useful while living in the jungle, tiger roar, click, whirl, RUN! This was a simple environment, not much to think, so simple codification was very useful. Now that we live in more complexes environments, when hostility may not always be life threatening we need better responses, we need to go against our nature and break the habit and the reflex to introduce a previous reflection moment. We need to rewire our brains.

There is a very interesting bug, called processionary caterpillars, they have developed a technique of finding food,  they follow the caterpillar in front, no matter what, forming long lines of caterpillars walking all according to the first guy criteria. One scientific called Jean-Henri Fabre once decided to test the limits of this bugs, he guided the front  caterpillar (and therefore make the entire column follow) until he put the front one just behind the last caterpillar, forming a circle, there was no more front leader but no one bothered to wonder that, they just followed one another. They continued and continued marching; the scientist decided to put them to a test and placed food inches away. How long until they get tired of this and go to eat or rest? He left the caterpillars walking in the circle and he discovered something amazing.

The caterpillar followed the behavior for a week until starving to death, no thinking, just acting even if that means a slow death with food inches away.

Pretty similar to some behaviors we follow sometimes, when it matter the most, we tend relay more on hard coded behaviors, reacting and not choosing our actions.

We can connect this with the anatomy of the brain, were we can distinguish 3 main pieces. The cortex and neo cortex (rational thinking), the limbic brain (emotional center) and the automatic brain (breathing and basic functions center).

Usually when we think we use the Cortex, it’s much slower than the other parts and it needs to take breaks (like when you day dream) but it’s capable of solving problems, planning, and high level tasks.

When you connect a past experience to the present and act without thinking, that is when the limbic brain is in control, remember that dog that bite you as a kid?, every time you react to dogs with fear it’s for that reason, that is the limbic brain in full, it never rests, its 100 times faster than the cortex and it can highjack your entire body and cause stress, fear and other feelings.

There are many techniques to control yourself on this circumstances, and an entire set of books around Emotional Intelligence that connect to this, but the first and most step is to understand in ourselves the animal within so we can someday learn to tame it.

Have fun discovering it

Felipe

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Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

4 steps to talk to unreasonable (read stupid) people

February 23, 2007

Unreasonable people are by definition everyone else, so learning how to solve these situations can become handy.

There are two motives someone is unreasonable, one is because there are too many chemical substances in both parties (I mean natural ones like adrenaline, but go figure), meaning you are talking with too many feelings and emotions and not thinking, these substances transform us and cloud our judgment. The only way to be able to have a conversation is to lower the heat and go back to intelligent argumentation. Now to come up with a win/win situation… that is another post. I will focus on how to (re)establish the communication in this one. The other motive is because he realizes he is wrong, but he needs to be consistent with all what was previously said, so he will fight to death to save face.

If this is the case additionally to following the four steps below, you need to provide an honorable door that he can open and follow to do the retreat. Don’t make a winner-looser situation, no one wants to be the looser.

In any case, these are the 4 steps to talk to unreasonable people.

The first step is to realize you are an unreasonable people for most of the world (just as you tagged everyone else). This is something that will take time to digest, first you start with the yea, that is obvious and you hit a mental delete, then it will slowly grow on you. Once you understand that maybe the other person is saying and suffering similar things you can start an empathy exercise.

Having the ability to transport yourself to the shoes of the other person will let you take a first step in solving the problem.

Second step. Be reasonable yourself first, it takes two to dance tango so avoid getting caught into the adrenaline rush that blinds you and makes you act like a cave man (or woman). If you act with the brain you will be able to see the cave man on the other side of the conversation.

The key to stay cool is the Story. What is the story you make up to explain the situation?, you can say: this moron is trying to say I am stupid and I can do anything right, click, adrenaline rush, click, bye bye brain power… Another story: this guy is desperate to get my attention, he is not capable of controlling himself, poor guy, let’s give him a hand, click…..nothing, click, the brain is still here. The story you make up to explain the facts you face triggers body responses, it’s better to feel sorry, pity, or laughter than to get angry and feel offended (I don’t judge the feelings, I just talk about the way they will affect your body chemistry).

Third step. Now that you can have some degree of control on your own body and mind, you need to help the other person to get there also; otherwise the content will be secondary because other factors are in play. Now, don’t fall for the go and read Felipe’s post first and then we talk, you cave man, because although I would love the referral, it would only get worst. There are 2 things that can help someone relax and be able to hear you: One is respect, the other is realizing you both want the same final objective (maybe in different strategies, but the same objective nonetheless). Make the other people feel respected, one way is to say it directly, but there are many ways, make them feel you are not insulting them, that you both are looking for the same (you can always zoom out the view until you reach a common objective, even if it’s very abstract you can find it), make it clear in a honest and respectful way. This should substantially lower the degree of unreasonability of most people.

Fourth step. Listen respectfully, pay attention and show that you are doing it (like paraphrasing or asking questions) and once you understand, explain your arguments. Try to find a common ground again, a solution that may not be exactly what you were thinking on the first place, but that also works and the same for the other guy. There are many tactics but the idea is a win-win situation that solves not the stated original purpose but the real, unspoken agenda (you may say you want a burger, but what you really want is to eat, so a pizza will do the trick also).

Most people that looks unreasonable is just defending something, may be their honor, may be their beliefs, if you uncover that agenda, while keeping a friendly conversation you will be able to have conversations you never thought possible. It’s just a matter of polishing the skill, and having the right attitude.

On the other hand, some people is just stupid.

Good Luck

Felipe

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Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

The “Your weakness” question in a job interview

February 18, 2007

In the middle of the job interview it’s very typical to hear a question like “So, what do you think your weaknesses are?” if you are not ready for this question, you may just blow the interview.

The worst possible answer is the one that tries to pop first: “none that matters, I am almost perfect and you would be stupid not to hire me”, that is one of the great moments were we have some censorship in our brains. The whole concept of strengths and weaknesses is part of a dynamic of self improvement that has been pretty popular in companies in the last years, they claim that an individual should be able to find the “areas of opportunity” (we usually try to phrase the bad with more positive wording) and then develop them over time.

This is an easy question and managers get a lot from it when answering so better be ready for it, chances are, you will hear it.

Before going in to strategies to deal with this question lets understand why do they ask it. First is important to note that most interviewing managers are not experts on the field, they may have done a lot of interviews but they have to come up with questions that gives them some guidance, usually they go for the “by the book” questions, with some work online you can be two steps ahead in the chess game of the interview and give them what they look for, but be careful, if you get caught they may not be happy…

When you use it, you realize that the weaknesses question gives you a lot of meta information, for example you can see if the person has a clear understanding of what his weaknesses are, if he has done some thinking on how to grow as a person, if he has the humility to come forward with something that is thought, and of course, you learn something about the person because you hear something that he needs to improve. It’s a very complete picture in a single question.

So now the dilemma is to “feed” all this answers and at the same time put something in the table that is not a deal breaker and will get you a foot in the back.

There are many strategies to come up with answers, the Vault.com points out 3 good ones:

·         A fault that is not a fault, like a strength that is too strong and can become annoying

·         Weaknesses with positive spin, so you accept the fault but also explain how you compensate

·         Switch the conversation to strengths and job related topics

Try to be honest and speak with the heart, if you sound too rehearsed you will lose credibility, never use the answers exactly as they are recommended, make them yours.

What it’s very important, is that no matter what strategy you choose, you need to provide the proper “between the lines” information that the in interview is looking for:

1.       You are self aware of your strengths and weaknesses

2.       You recognize you need to learn and improve

3.       You have a plan to do it

4.       You compensate your weaknesses (with help from others, , other strengths, tools, etc.)

AND that your weaknesses are among the reasonable faults, not like stealing or sexually harassing coworkers.

So make your own mix, keep them coherent, make everything part of the wonderful story that shows you and sell yourself with the proper balance of humility and security.

Good Luck

Felipe

3 Comments | Career Development, Job Interview, career, job, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

How to succeed in a job interview (even the first)

January 29, 2007

I am going to assume you want to get the job or at least learn something for the next interview. If you just want to waste your time you can read this list of what (obviously) not to do in a job interview.

Ok, so you have your first job interview, and as in any stressful situation in our life, the first time looks like a big deal (like that first kiss or that first public speech), before moving on, read this post on 4 tips to control your nerves, that is one of the key pieces on a successful interview.

Nerves shouldn’t be a problem now, so now let’s review what the structure on an average interview is, the order of the sections can vary but most of the pieces should appear.

Salutations and small talk: As in dating, this is the chemistry moment, the interviewer evaluates a lot of things on the person, is he clean? Does he look professional? Is he polite? Can he fit in our culture?

·         Smile (not too much, you don’t want to look crazy)

·         Firm shake hand (not too much)

·         Formal dress and manners (whatever that means in the organization you are interviewing, it can be something different according to each culture)

Talk about the position: The hiring manager talks about the position sometimes, this is the moment to get the best information, you should be taking mental notes, so you leverage on what is most important for the position. If you are asked what you think, try to say something that relates to the impact of the organization that shows you see why they are spending money on it.

Sometimes you will not be lucky and they will not share with you any of this info, too bad.

·         Look like you are interested and engaged, nod every now and then like you are the perfect fit

·         Pay close attention, make mental notes to use later on

Talk about you: Eventually the conversation will turn so the interviewer learns more about you; usually they use by the book questions like tell me your weaknesses and tell me your strengths, read more about some ideas in the websites at the end of the post. The most important is to use the answers to give glimpses of your experiences and skills, link the stories with key topics like how you impacted the business, teamwork, cross group collaboration. Usually they also cover previous jobs and why you left each one. NEVER talk trash, if you talk trash for an ex company, eventually they will be the ex company. Be polite.

·         Be secure, but not too cocky

·         Have a weaknesses answer that you can spin, so it’s not a big weakness

·         Have a why you left last position/company ready (elegant)

·         You can carefully bring of a weakness yourself

Tough moment: Most of the time, the hiring manager will feel smart and create a tough moment to test you, usually a combination of a low ball question, something impolite, an impossible question, etc.

The objective here is not the answer itself, but to test your hard coded reactions, how do you act under stress, how do you make an estimate, etc.

For the low ball / impolite questions, be careful, polite, spin them, don’t be angry its maybe just part of the test or because the interviewer wasn’t careful, either case, move on smoothly

For the questions that asks you something really hard like how many coins do you think are in this building right now? The objective is to show some logic, some ordered process, doesn’t matter the number, if you make a good argument, try something like estimating the number of floors in the building, the number of people per floor, the number of coins per average people, etc.

·         Look cool, be honest, be smart

·         Don’t fall for the impolite game, be polite

Your questions: Almost at the end of the interview you will be asked if you have questions, I don’t mind if you do, you always should say yes and then make a smart question. It’s a free time to show you care; you look how to add value.

·         Never ask about the egoist side only (like money)

·         Ask about something more deep, like what are the key challenges

Closing: The closing is a very brief moment, you will get something like we will call you, thanks, so its your last moment to make a good impression. As in the begging, handshake, smile, thanks. Maybe if they explained a lot acknowledge and thank that. Show interest but not desperation (pretty much like in dating)

During the entire interview show positive energy, commitment, interests, when possible show that you are listening by refreshing something or quoting the interviewer, just be polite when doing it. Use short answers; the idea is not to have a monologue but to cover all the topics

Leave a resume (read also 7 tips to write a resume) , printed in decent/nice paper and folder with your contact information, a picture in swimsuit (just kidding J) and send a written note or email a few days later thanking for the interview (a last opportunity to refresh their memory).

To continue reviewing other resources on Job Interviews you can check

·         About section from Alison Doyle

·         Monster section

My last suggestion is that if we acknowledge that the process is quite hard, why not practice before? You can go to job interview of jobs you are not that interested in, or are a long shot, so you feel each time more comfortable and prepared… who says we can have some free training J Specially for your first time…

Good luck

Felipe

 

No Comments » | Career Development, Job Interview, career, job, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

4 tips to control your nerves (for that important event)

January 28, 2007

There are many situations that we encounter in our professional life (and also clearly in the personal side) that makes us feel very nervous, a big presentation, an important meeting, a job interview, and many other situations can exercise an incredible amount of pressure. When we are starting our careers many of these situations are a first, or compared to others times, it looks there is so much at stake.

As we know these situations will continue coming (just as in our personal life) it’s better to have some sort of strategy to avoid making a fool of our selves so Prepare yourself.

1st Tip

The first thing to prepare yourself is to put the event in perspective, usually caught in the moment we tend to exaggerate things and everything looks so much more important than it really is. Remember when you were a kid? First you hated kids from the opposite  sex, then you changed your mind and loved one, then you were scared of giving a first kiss, and then …. Ok, ok, you get the idea and now you can laugh. So the point is this: we need to understand that the situation is the same, you think the world is spinning just for this moment, and it’s not, try to do your best, but if it doesn’t work, other moments will come as other girls (or boys) came after that really hard break up.

If you manage to put things in perspective you are allmost done, just avoid saying:” in this particular case, it is really a big deal” (year right!).

2nd Tip

The next thing is to dedicate some time gathering intelligence, learn something about the situation, the people you will interact with, proper ways to manage, protocol or anything else that may help you look like you know what you are doing. The Internet is full of this type of content (as part of the Career Blueprints I will include specific articles on job interviews and others, but there is plenty of info out there), so no excuses here, a couple of hours will do the trick.

Let’s assume you did your homework and of course, prepared what you needed for that critical event. Now what?

3rd Tip

Well usually you will arrive to the event and slowly without noticing you will breadth less and less, you will fill your body with adrenaline and everyone will notice it, if you don’t control this, you will do poorly. So what is the secret? It´s simple, just breath, concentrate to make long, controlled breaths, feel the air coming in and out, relax the mind, think it as  a “very light meditation” J. If you don’t run out of oxygen, you will still own your body. Relax the shoulders and the stomach while you focus on the breath.

4th Tip

The last tip is somewhat funny, and at first I didn’t bought it, but it really works: just a few moments before your big event, repeat to yourself several times, that you have everything under control, that you did an excellent homework and you will be great, visualize yourself, breath and nail it.

Checklist

1.       Put things in perspective

2.       Gather intelligence and do your homework

3.       Breath

4.       Reinforce yourself

Good luck, you will see, the 2nd time is easier

Felipe

4 Comments | Career Development, Job Interview, career, job, personal skills, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

7 mistakes while building your Resume

January 26, 2007

 

You should always have a nice, short and updated resume, even if you already have a job or you are not looking for one, you never know when you will need it and believe me, it’s not something you can do in 5 minutes, so better be prepared.

Mistake #1: Too long

Unless you are in academia and wrote a lot of articles your resume should be really short: one page only, don’t dream that someone will read more. You need to communicate in a condensed way what your experiences and abilities are. If you don’t know where to start to cut, start with your elementary school information and continue deleting the things that all the others resumes can have. Organize the information so if I read the first lines, I will be interested enough to keep reading. Most of the time you will get 15 seconds only.

Mistake #2: Just one version

Don’t use the exact same resume for everything, better have one master resume that you can tailor for specific circumstances and include additional information on the particular job requirements each time. Investigate a little bit beforehand about the company and the position, think what they are looking for and then increase the amount of information about that topics. Use the master version for submission to online job web sites like Monster and send the tailored one otherwise.

Mistake #3: Many small things don’t make up one big thing

Don’t list all the uninteresting awards, activities, classes or associations that you belong to, list the best only, if you put too much, then it’s counterproductive. Choose the things that set you apart, that have the biggest impact and include a couple of bullets regarding what your participation was and the business impact you accomplished.

Mistake #4: Boring experience section

One of the most important parts in your resume is the experience section, don’t only list jobs but include a list from the most recent to the oldest and in only the latest’s some bullets to detail the activity and the business impact, be creative and use some marketing, it’s very different to say you filled some excel sheets than to say you were in charge of tracking KPIs and gathering additional business intelligence by developing a new process that was leveraged by the CEO to in the new campaign (whatever, you get the idea). Show some marketing and communications skills, if you can’t do it for you, then you can’t do it for the organization.  

Mistake #5: Too much education points

I know you are very proud of the time you had an honorary award during elementary school, but besides your closest family no one else cares, I am sorry. In your resume keep it short, concise, include anything that sets you apart of the pack but just the best results.

Mistake #6 Over/Under design

Don’t make a work of art, don’t leave it totally plain, look for something elegant, simple, crisp. If you print it use a decent paper (not the cheap white) and a nice folder. Use a nice word template that has little design and completely customize it, so it doesn’t look like you just copied the original text. Don’t include backgrounds or anything annoying. The resume should be easy to read, with enough white space.

Mistake #7 Lack of feedback

When you think you got it, don’t celebrate, first make a round of feedback with someone, if you can find help from a more experienced person great, but some feedback is indispensable, see what was the reaction, what did they liked and what didn’t and make some adjustments. The more feedback from experienced people, the better.

Bonus Mistake  No Objective or career summary

To grab the attention of the hiring manager, include at first a brief paragraph with your career summary or your objective, it’s a marketing pitch that will sell you, generating interest so he reads more.

It’s a good idea to spend one hour learning more about resumes, you will use that skill for a long time so why not start now. Then a couple of hours writing it and a couple more later on for feedback and adjustments.

Some places that you may want to try to start are:

Refresh your resume each year, it helps build the muscle and each time you will get better

Have fun!

Felipe

 

No Comments » | Career Development, Resume, career, job, work | Permalink
Posted by Felipe Lemaitre

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