Interviewing Do's and Don'ts

DO research the organization: history, size, products/services, market/customers, financial outlook

• DON'T ask the interviewer to tell you about the company

DO find out about the culture including appropriate attire, community involvement, mission statement, etc.

• DON'T show up to a bank dressed for a BBQ and likewise don't show up to a dental office dressed for a funeral

DO bring along a copy of your resume, list of references, paper and pen

• DON'T have your cell phone on, your Bluetooth on or bring anyone else with you

DO practice answering interview questions. Visit www.about.com and search on "interviewing" for a great number of articles and sample questions

• DON'T answer questions with questions except to clarify. For instance, if the interviewer asks what your 5 year goal is, DON'T answer with "why do you want to know?", but feel free to ask if they are interested in knowing your personal 5 year goal as well as your professional one

DO know yourself. Know your skills, abilities, strengths, weaknesses, work ethic, professional goals and what you have to offer an employer. Take the time to write them down and review them daily.

• DON'T expect potential employers to glean all of your skills and traits from your resume

DO know your limits relating to commute, salary and office hours

• DON'T mislead and interviewer for a job you are not willing to perform

DO expect the unexpected and be ready to roll with the punches

• DON'T act offended or insulted if the interview schedule is not maintained or if there are multiple changes during the course of your interview (unless you have decided you do not want the position in any case)

DO eat a good meal prior to interviews so that your body can focus on the most important thing: staying sharp

• DON'T go to an interview hungry or tired if you can help it
  

DO remember to smile, make eye contact and try very hard to remember the names of your interviewers (write them down; ask for their names again if you didn't catch it the first time)

• DON'T expect the interviewer(s) to have read your resume recently or remember what it says

DO keep in mind that interviewing is a lot like dating; patience, compassion, understanding and boundaries are all required in this setting.

DO have a great interview!!!!

Staying the Course

I received this today and thought to share it because I fully believe these are words to live by. Enjoy your day today and best wishes for your journeys. -Lesa

Staying the Course
By BJ Gallagher

Our journey of life is about progress,
not perfection.
It's not about doing one thing
100% better -
it's a matter of doing 100 things,
1% better each day.

Progress is evolutionary
not revolutionary,
and most days we measure our progress
in inches,
not miles.

What matters most
is showing up for your life
whether you feel like it
or not.

Ask yourself,
"What two or three little things
can I do today
that would move me forward?"

You'll be amazed
at how much distance
you can cover
by taking it in increments.

The little things add up;
the inches turn to miles;
and we string together our efforts
like so many pearls.
Before long,
look what you have -
a whole strand!

Ah... beautiful.

You're Speaking English?

I recently read the funny email below and am reminded of how much there is to learn for people who speak English as a second language. It's difficult enough when you consider the myriad slang and jargon that is used in workplaces across English speaking countries (I have a hard time following British, Irish and Scottish English over the phone), but the words used below simply defy logic and reason altogether.

When you're talking with someone from another country (or to a child), keep in mind that they are experiencing the same difficulty in understanding you as you are in understanding them. Speak slowly, enunciate and check in frequently to make sure that your words are being understood in the correct context.

Enjoy the play on words below:

1. The bandage was wound around the wound.

2. The farm was used to produce produce.

3. The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4. We must polish the Polish furniture.

5. He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6. The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7. Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to
present the present.

8. A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9. When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10. I did not object to the object.

11. I had to subject the subject to a series of tests on various subjects.

12. The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

13. How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

14. There was a row among the oarsmen in the third row about how to row the boat.

15. They were too close to the door to close it.

16. The buck does funny things when the does are present.

17. A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

18. To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

19. The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

20. After a number of injections my jaw got number.

21. Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

22. After a short interruption I was able to resume work on my resume.


If I knew who wrote it, I would most certainly give them credit. The above was sent to me in an email by Mark Lusher of www.omnidant.com.

Graduation to Employment - A Road Map

Congratulations, graduate! You've accomplished a lot over your student career and you're ready to reap the rewards of a hot-off-the-press degree. The studying and homework are over, right? Wrong! You'll need to use your same dedication and hard work to identify and land the job that will pay the bills and ideally launch your career.

Most people would advise you to start by writing your resume. I disagree based on the assumption that you don't have any professional experience. Working part time at Starbucks or Denny's doesn't count as professional experience in my book and I highly recommend leaving those kinds of job descriptions off of your resume entirely, if possible. You can simply list them as employment with the name of the company, the dates you worked there and your title. This gives the reader credit for being able to deduce what your duties were and it shows that you recognize that experience as being unrelated to the business world you are attempting to enter.

Start by reading as many job descriptions as you can get your eyes in front of to get a feel for how employers address their needs and how they word the requirements for each job. To find descriptions to review, use any of the job boards such as CareerBuilder, Monster, HotJobs, etc.

Be sure to also do web searches based on the types of jobs you think you're going to apply for and include the word "resume" in your search. The search engine will return results for resumes of people doing the job(s) you want and you should read at least a few of them to get a sense of how these folks represent themselves and which responsibilities they feel are worth presenting on a resume.

To put you in the correct frame of mind for job searching, let me start by bursting your bubble a bit: employers don't care about your degree unless you are qualified to fill the position you are applying for. Put another way, if you don't have professional experience getting paid for doing a job similar to what the employer is looking for, then your resume will not be considered, regardless of your education. I know it's hard to accept, but it's the truth so the sooner you embrace the search as the challenge that it is, the quicker you will find a position that will satisfy your expectations.

Let's visit the topic of expectations for a moment so that you can know what to expect and prepare yourself accordingly. Odds are you can expect the following to be true when potential employers consider your resume:
• You will not be considered for positions that manage people outside of the fast food or retail industries
• You will not be considered for senior level positions within a team that has multiple levels of positions (i.e. junior, associate, senior, etc.)
• You will be considered for junior level positions
• It will be assumed that you will accept less money because you are a recent graduate
• It will be assumed that you will work harder than the rest of the team because you are a recent graduate looking to prove yourself
• It will be assumed that you will offer more value in the areas of computer and information skills to offset your lack of professional experience

Now that you know what employers see in a recent graduate and you've taken a look at the available jobs and resumes of people actually qualified to do those jobs, you're ready to start putting together your resume. Be sure to have your contact information prominently displayed so that recruiters and managers don't have to hunt it down (Go ahead and put it at the top where we all expect it to be; you won't lose creativity points for it). I recommend not doing an "Objective" section because there's no good way to phrase your desire to be compensated for working and contributing in a fun, creative environment without sounding like you're registering at some store for your graduation gifts. Instead, create a "Qualifications Summary" section where you'll list the skills you possess that will be attractive to an employer such as leading brainstorming sessions, creating processes/procedures, delivering a completed product or project, etc. You can create this section as a bulleted list or in paragraph form. Since you're focusing on your value as opposed to your experience, you'll want to use key phrases gleaned from job descriptions and other resumes (not plagiarized) to present your attributes and knowledge in a like manner.

Search the job sites mentioned above as well as the employment office of your college and search the web for local/regional job boards in your specific geographical area. Get creative with your search words and leave no stone unturned. Make sure your social media sites are clean – no profanity or nudity, and definitely keep your messages grammatically correct whenever possible. Stay focused on your search and before you know it you'll be off to your first day of work.

Good luck!

Hope Abounds for Those Looking for It

It's a Monday morning and I should be avidly reviewing notes for my upcoming presentation this morning but instead I am inspired to write a bit about hope because I surprise even myself with how hopeful I remain on a daily basis.

Why do I remain so hopeful? I have tapped into some kind of hope stream for myself and the people in my field of vision. These people include of course my family, clients, potential clients the young adults I work with through Outward Bound, the parents I intend to someday educate through seminars of some sort and all of the people who are currently struggling for work. We all have the potential and opportunity to be okay in the long run and I believe this so strongly and so innately that I simply cannot stop being hopeful.

I recently made an acquaintance through Twitter (I adore Twitter) that instantly intrigued and thrilled me. The company is called WorkNet and the founder has literally written the book on how to help people who are deemed "unemployable" for one reason or another. Incredible!! I got in contact with the person I met named Chris Webster and he walked me through their program a bit and offered me unlimited support and encouragement for the program I have put together for Outward Bound Los Angeles. As far as I'm concerned, Elisabeth H. Sanders Park writes for me when she says "Go for it! Whether your specialty is working with people in a highly individualized way, or your average day makes big changes that affect many, approach overcoming barriers with purpose and creativity!".

My current and future clients will all be so much better off once they have received the information I have put together to show them how to increase their ROI in their internal recruiting efforts. It took me a long time to go out on my own because for myself, I have to know that I am helping someone and being "another" staffing company offering the same old news has never appealed to me as the concept itself lacks any notion of meaningful assistance in this day and age. Focusing on the positive, I am grateful to the scores of staffing companies who adamantly refuse to operate in an ethical fashion without the slightest regard to the trail of broken spirits they leave in their collective wake. My revolution has begun and there is so much need out there that I can't give up in my quest to help as many people as possible through the various channels I have dedicated myself and my company to focus on.

My family life is full of drama and struggles dealing with the inevitable difficulties associated with blended families. All children of divorce suffer to varying degrees and I literally exhaust myself trying to make sure no bit of needed attention slips through the cracks. It's an impossible task of course, but both my efforts and my fiance's efforts have reaped tremendous rewards in improved communication with our children and a marked improvement in our children's behavior across the board. It's scary and intimidating, but we refuse to abandon the hope that our kids will come through all of it to become wonderfully happy, hopeful and productive adults.

One key to my success in remaining hopeful is terribly simple: turn off the television. There is so little good news being reported that I honeslty never watch live television except for the weather channel. I record the shows I want to see, fast forward through even the commercials for the news and commit myself to receiving news via Twitter (did I mention I love Twitter?) RSS feeds, magazines and my own browsing. I give no media outlet permission to interrupt my hopeful day with negative droning about any topic.

Elisabeth H. Sanders-Park also mused about the movie The Princess Bride and how Billy Crystal and Carol Kane were saying their farewells and said "Have fun stormin' the castle!". We all have castles to storm, metaphorically speaking, so I will bid you farewell this morning in kind. Have fun stormin' the castles, everyone!

Unemployment, Foreclosures and Wall Street, Oh My

What is happening in our country is unlike anything we've seen before. It's everywhere we turn and the news is dire: national unemployment (non farm) is at 8.1% according to www.bls.gov/CPS and here in California it's 10.5% according to every headline in every medium on every news/media outlet. The cover of the LA Times Business section yesterday was a full spread aimed at educating us poor homeowners whose hopes and fears about the fate of our mortgages is unparallelled on the chart of "oh my goodness, what are we going to do". And honestly, one more story about the clusterf&@#k that is AIG and I'm going to announce my self-appointment to lead the revolution.

I know I'm not alone in feeling completely pummeled by our legislature and wall street but I can't help but wonder why there hasn't been a call to action by anyone other than the whack job who thinks he's Benjamin Franklin. I won't even include a reference link to his YouTube video here because I can't be responsible for increasing the viewership of his ridiculousness.

It's high time to stand tall, folks. You need a job? Create one for yourself. What have you got to lose? This is still America, the land of opportunity. There are so many opportunities for us to make a living providing needed services to our near and distant neighbors. There are also many, many websites dedicated to helping those of us in business for ourselves by providing information, resources and forums. Check out a few: Startup, Entrepreneur, Ladies Who Launch, Tanned Feet, SBA, and there are many, many groups on LinkedIn geared specifically to starting a business, marketing that business and growing the business. Twitter is also a great resource for information, but it does require a bit of time so I suggest browsing Twitter for information that will be helpful to you and then joining the fray once you've started your business so that you can contribute, as well.

What else can you do? Make your voice heard by writing your representatives in Congress to tell them your thoughts on what's going on. Write in to newspapers, television shows and blogs to provide feedback on the information being presented by them. Whether you like the content or not, let your voice be heard. That's what we're supposed to do, you know. The people "in charge" are supposedly representing us and since we ultimately pay all of their salaries, we're entitled to give them feedback on their job performance. I'm talking about all of the politicians and all of the newscasters and journalists. Be noisy.

The foreclosure news is so bad everywhere that I can't help but have a morbid curiosity as to what will happen next. What I hope for is the mortgage banks will figure out a way to make the necessary corrections in order to rewrite many mortgages altogether. But it's not looking too good as the LA Times exposed the truth behind the various programs that exist for homeowners to address their dilemmas. At least I hope it's the truth. It's very hard to keep up! Call your realtor as they are the best first line for real news and information. Whatever you do, ignore everything that comes in the mail offering assistance to homeowners. If it's not from your mortgage holder or realtor, toss it. If you don't have a realtor you can trust, check out the National Association of Realtors to find one.

Ah, Wall Street. How I loathe thee. Remember, you're supposed to be able to be the President with an 8th grade education. I keep that little tidbit at the forefront of my mind when I consider Wall Street because I just don't think it's right how our collective nest eggs should be at the mercy of folks dealing in financial matters that most people can't understand. Even with all of the new information flooding in from well meaning individuals and media outlets, it's still not exactly clear what has happened. What?? That's right - nobody actually knows. There are plenty who have educated guesses, but since they're mostly saying different things, the only logical conclusion one can draw is that there were a whole bunch of people getting away with far too much. Keep it simple for yourself and only invest in things you can understand with minimal research. Because there is still value on the stock market, folks - lots of it. It's just that all of the shenanigans that have been going on have confused the darn thing so much as to make it nearly unrecognizable. Invest in things you can truly understand.

The bad news is on a roll, for sure. But we can remain strong and successful if we don't give up our hope, our efforts and our contributions to the collective by making our voices heard.

You've been waiting for it, I know, so here is my self-serving plug. I've launched a new web site offering training webinars in an effort to serve all of those folks out there who need help finding a job. They're cheap, they're efficient and they're the real deal - no baloney. Job seekers will find resources for their search, their resume and nailing the interview: www.iwillworkshops.com.

As always, I wish you every success in your endeavors and fret over you as only a cosmic mother does. If there is a topic you'd like me to address, don't be shy! Get in touch to let me know.

Meetup and Mix at McCormick and Schmick's on Thursday, 2/26

Stay connected for the greater good! Meet like-minded, similarly talented professionals to share information about jobs and keep each other in mind for current and future opportunities. We’ve got people coming from many different companies and positions – IT, Digital Media, Mobile, Gaming and Marketing.

McCormick and Schmick’s in Burbank is extending happy hour just for us to meet, mix and mingle. We’ll have happy hour pricing for as long as we’re there (it normally ends at 6:30pm).

Thursday, February 26 6:00pm – 8:00pm

McCormick and Schmick's
3500 West Olive Avenue
Burbank, California 91505
(818)260-0505

There is no cover charge or registration fee, but there is a two drink minimum and of course, don’t forget to tip our servers who will be working hard to make sure we have a good time!

Please feel free to forward this invitation along and if you have questions you can contact me by leaving a comment here, connecting through LinkedIn or on Twitter. All recruiters are welcome.

We look forward to seeing you next Thursday!

I have been remiss in blogging over the last few weeks and will be back in the swing after next Thursday.