Are You Willing to Move Carts?

The real reasons why some people progress and others don't

I have been looking for years to separate out the reasons why some people progress in their careers and others don't. Trying to understand what causes some people to be successful by most definitions and others to stay stagnant in their lives. On this quest of over ten years, I of course had my break through revelation in the most logical and classiest of places; the WalMart Parking lot.

As much as I live for wally world shopping trips, I declined to go in and volunteered to stay with two of our three children in the car. My wife, Alyssa,  took our youngest son, Grayson into the store on a life or death mission for M & Ms, which all parents know are a necessity for potting training at least one of your children (whether you want to admit it or not.) While she spent a solid five minutes in our shopping destination of choice (or lack there of), I got down to serious high quality observation and research on success that would make Malcolm Gladwell jealous.

Naturally the one parking spot that was open had carts near the front of it. Two carts in fact, pushed haphazardly up against the gold Mitsubishi in front of me as I pulled into the space. My first thought was to get out and put the carts back in the cart return that was only two stalls over but just then the people who belonged to the vehicle next to the carts came out of the store and delicately tried to get into their car without touching nor moving the carts. This was challenging because one of the two was right in front of the passenger car door. They successfully found their way into the vehicle and eventually pulled away. At this point, I thought, I am going to sit here and just watch what happens.

A Marketing Plan for You, Part I: Job Search

I used to have a small contracting business. Small (about 20 seasonal employees) but successful in it's own right. We did mostly exterior painting and I divided my time between operating the business and marketing to generate new business.  My team and I didn't use complicated tactics, at the time we didn't have to worry about the seeming complexities of SEO or buying ads on facebook. We did however run a successful marketing campaign. It dawned on me as I was listening to an interview with Lisa Earle McCloud, marketing expert, I utilized the very principles that she suggests. She cites the analogy of marketers being similar to deer hunters. Avid hunters will learn everything they can about the deer they intend to hunt. They will go to the place where the deer will most likely be, wearing gear that will be most likely to bag a buck.

In her example great marketers will do the exact same thing.  They will  very specifically determine the target customer and then go where they are, do what they do, see how they live, and serve them completely by speaking their language. In the business that I was in, this was pretty easy. I looked at certain zip codes, determined where there were groupings of residential neighborhoods with average incomes over certain levels, and focused on making those people aware of my services and my business.

This same concept can be applied to marketing yourself during a job search or job transition. Think about it as creating a marketing plan and strategy for yourself. For today's post let’s look at 2 of these concepts:

1. Defining your target market
2. Go to where they are

Defining your target market:

What areas are you interested in living or commuting to? If you are only interested in San Francisco there is no use at looking companies that require you to live in West Palm Beach, Florida

What types of roles are you interested in? If your answer is anything then you probably won't like this blog. It's all about how to use

What companies are likely to have these jobs? Google probably doesn't hire that many welders

Go to where they are at:

Are there professional associations, groups, or meetings that take place in the area for the industry, job or career you are interested in? It's likely there are, whether you know about them or not.

Are there local LinkedIn groups, online groups or other digital local avenues where you can get introduced to people in these roles or people who can make or influence hiring decisions? If your answer is no, then you haven't looked hard enough. Get creative. Between all of the avenues available on the internet you can easily gather enough information to understand what these people are involved in and what they participate in.

Call them at their work. When will they be available? This one seems obvious, but I guarantee you will be unlikely to get most professionals in traditional  jobs on the phone at 10am. This is prime time for meetings, activities, and general work flow time. You would have a much better shot closer to 8am or between 4pm and 5:30pm.

Have an offer at the ready:

Who are you? Why are you calling? What do you want? These questions need to be answered in a 2 minute phone call time period. It's great if you talk with.

4 years ago when I decided I was going to make job transition I knew that I wanted to be in the Human Resources field. Got involved with the local Society for Human Resources Management chapter, where I began to meet HR folks from all around the area. I began volunteering for events and in short order ended up on the board of directors for that chapter. At the same time I was contacting several HR VPs and Directors at local area companies each week. I had previously done research on all of the organizations that I was interested in and had limited it down to a list of 20. I asked to meet with many of the people that I contacted and was able to arrange phone calls, interviews or other in person meetings with well over half of them.

This targeted set of activities led to over 20 interviews and  5 job offers over a 6 month period of time. More than that it led to some fantastic long term relationships. I still have people calling me regularly and saying, I know of a job or an opportunity that you  might be interested in.

Remember most people get jobs through relationships. I hear many people say take an inventory of who you know. I simply reversed this and said how I build relationships with those people who can expose me to opportunities.

One important note on all of this, you should never set out to join a group or build relationships just because it will benefit you. The groups that I participated in often required time and energy from me to contribute to the cause. I got involved with numerous groups along the way and did not join any one of them because of the things it would get me.  Instead each of these groups lined up with my values and what I wanted to contribute to both personally and professionally. In the case of contacting employers and meeting with people each time it was something that was mutually beneficial. For them it was a potential addition to someone they  could add to their talent pipeline should they have a need later on down the road.

You can do this too. It doesn't take a scientist or even a marketing expert to use each of these concepts in your career.

Go and Happen to Your Career!

How to REALLY prep for an interview!

What do you do leading up to the interview? prep for a few questions, practice in the mirror, work on your smiling. All great but as they say this can potentially be "putting lipstick on a pig" if you don't have great experiences to draw from.

So what really preps you for an interview?

Good quality experiences are the basis for really good stories. Stories that of course have a great situation leading up to it, show what stellar behavior you chose to exhibit, and display how you achieved an award winning outcome. How you took on an extra project that changed not only the way your department does business but other departments throughout the company. How you had an idea for cost savings, that really didn't take any extra time but simply required you and your coworkers to start to work in a different way, and oh yes… this one saved your organization $27,000 in short order and lead to you getting a raise. People with experiences like these are the ones employers want to hire. These are even the type of people that are likely to get several job offers and have the ability to negotiate both salary and other terms of the position.

"But Scott" you say "I don't have any of these fancy schmancy experiences but I still want that Finance Manager job in that sweet office building down the road with a view." Maybe so but guess what? someone else who has great experiences actively improving her organization and getting results also wants that job. You will be competing against this person. Going up against someone who has great experiences in an interview is a little like the person who swims a couple of times a week in the pool at the YMCA, competing for a single spot in the olympics. Even if you get through the "elimination rounds" you will be able to tell very quickly by the rapidly expanding gap of water, who the star performers are.

Having great experiences can help you change career fields. One common language in many job interviews is leadership and influence around focused improvement. That is something all organizations are looking for and those are always transferrable skills and experiences. In fact what often stands out

Let's dig a little deeper to determine how we get there. How do you start noticing opportunities or problems for improvement in your organization?

Caring about what happens where you work is a start. Now before you launch into your martyr story about how much you care about this or that, I would challenge you to think about this: Does everyone else that you work with feel the same way about you; That you put yourself behind the needs of the organization and the people in it? That's where you start to notice opportunities to get an interview story. You get miffed a little bit when paper gets wasted or we are giving the customer a less than stellar experience. You start to cringe when you see that that since "we have always done it that way" it has lead to no shortage of missed opportunities and  extra expenses.

Another place you can start is by volunteering for projects, more responsibility, additional workload, to work with other departments, channels, or vendors. We have one person on our team right now that was promoted into position a year ago. Since then he has taken on the most challenging projects that nobody else wanted. He has since been very successful with each project. Through these he has achieved some amazing exposure working closely with other teams and at the same time stretched himself outside his comfort zone. Because of this he now has other experiences working with some of our senior leaders and at the same time has given himself a competitive advantage compared to other people in similar level positions. He will likely be very successful when a position comes open for promotion or if he wanted to go someplace else could probably get numerous job offers.

Think about it this way: If you were your own marketing or sales department for the company of You Inc, wouldn't you want to sell products or services that have significant differentiation from your competitors? That is exactly what you are doing here. Creating competitive advantage in the labor marketplace through the accumulation of the best stories is the best way to ensure that you can have the career you want. 

So remember before you get anywhere close to the actual interview the best way to prep is to say yes to experience.

The rest is as simple as just telling stories!

63,000 Opportunities Waiting for You. Self Start Here...

Have you ever read a posting for a job that says "looking for a self starter" or talked to a sales manager about who was successful on his team and he says "well that guy is a real self starter" (then his next sentence is "wish the rest of them could be more like that"). Everyone wants this "self starter", why is that? You will hear them called go-getters, spark plugs, ambitious, workhorses and many other things, but I think the 63,000+ job postings on indeed.com that are looking for a self starter have it right! They are looking for someone with initiative and someone who starts things themselves and without waiting on others.

Everyone wants this from the people they hire, but after years and years of hiring people and working with managers who hire people, I bet that very few of these job posters will find their self starters. I also bet that those who are self starters will find that they really have their pick of companies, locations, professions, promotions or even the possibility to start their own company, grow it and post their own ad looking for self starters! This is because this trait, which requires the willingness to not wait on others for permission and the strong possibility of making mistakes, taking risks and experiencing failures, is somewhat rare in the marketplace.

Seth Godin devotes a whole book to this concept of initiative and the self starter (Poke the Box), Dave Ramsey references this type person suggesting traits of ownership and initiative in "Entreleadership". The reason this concept sells is because it is uncomfortable to take initiative, it can be embarrassing to fail, and it can feel scary to do something others aren't doing. In a country that creates societal incentives for mediocrity and avoiding taking the reigns to start things yourself, this is a hot commodity. Sadly everyone wants to know how to do this but more importantly, as Seth Godin points out, they have to be sold on the idea because it is against the societal norm.

When I consider this, it is both frustrating to me and exciting at the same time. Exciting because, as a serial self starter myself, I find that there is so little competition in the job market that is so desperately pining after self starters. Frustrating because I see countless societal incentives that cause good people to make limiting choices that do not lead them down the road of self starting.

The most recent example of this is at the organization where I work; we have a lot of people there that have potential. Potential but feel they are stuck in their situation. One woman in particular, we will call her Tiffany, was working in a job that earned around $16 per hour and performing well. Performing well but not performing great. Not performing great because she viewed herself as limited in what she could do.

Tiffany was limited because she had a special needs child and if she earned any more in income she would not receive the medical insurance from the state that she so desperately felt she must have. If she didn't have it she would be a bad mom. Tiffany had shown snippets of potential and snippets of self starting but this wasn't unleashed until a manager saw some of this and spent hours with her selling her on the idea of what she could accomplish. After two month of convincing she took a promotion and is now a stellar performer because she gets to start things herself everyday. She ended up getting a large raise to go along with it that paid for the insurance and all is well!

The reality is though that most of us will not experience Tiffany's situation. We will not have a manager there to sell us on the idea of what life could be like if we removed our objections to becoming a self starter. Most of us have to do this on our own. I would like to offer the reason that like Tiffany, it could change your life. So, practice, now! by starting something, regardless of the outcome, failure or success. You will learn along the way. It's the learning that causes you to grow. 

Please comment on any self starting you have done, big or small. How do you will yourself to take initiative?

Prepping for a job interview...I have to do WHAT?

Prepping for a job interview is a little like losing weight: most everybody knows that you should do it and most people choose not to. At least not in a way that will prepare you for just about anything you could encounter in an interview. Here are a few steps that anyone can do to prep for job interviews. 

If you do these things (all the way, not half way) AND you have the ability to build relationships you will easily be in the top 10% of interviewees out there. This of course is also assuming you are qualified for the position.

1. Write down the 15-20 most challenging experiences you have worked through or overcome in your life. These should be mostly professional with a few personal sprinkled in if you like. After about 7 or 8 for most people this will start to be difficult, but push through to at least 15. Make sure you have a mix of people focused examples (communication, conflict resolution, leadership, etc.) and process or non people focused (improvements in process or procedure, challenges overcome in a system, etc)
2. Write down the Situation, Behavior and Outcome of each situation to form the story that will make sense to the interviewer. This means: describe what the past situation was, share what you did or how you handled it, and what was the result of that situation.
3. Practice describing each mini story in 3-5 minutes (max) at first with yourself and then later with someone  else.

4. Get feedback from someone else about how concise your stories are, are they understandable, do they make the point, is the situation, behavior or outcome easily distinguishable? How could it be improved?

If you do all of this, you will be well prepared for a behavioral based interview (tell me about a time when…) and if you are in an interview with general questions (what do you do when… or how do you handle….) you will be in a great position to make a fantastic impression on the interviewer. Simply say "do you mind if I share a specific situation where I was able to do that?" and then tell your story that matches that question.

If you have written and practiced 15 to 20 situations you will easily be able to recall one that matches up to the question. Even if you don't have one that matches up perfectly, going through the exercises above will prepare you to think in a manner that comes across well in an interview.

More importantly than any of the advice listed above, preparing in this manner will allow you to feel more comfortable during an interview, which allows you to be more likely to be yourself. This is always the best way to go!

For more information about how to get the interview in the first place see The Greatest Resume Ever...and Why NOT to Write it!

Feel free to comment on what has helped you prep for interviews!

When Job Searching, Persistence beats out anything else, Except humility.

Over the last few months I have been involved in the hiring for quite a few positions and it got me thinking; What are the most valued qualities that will get you hired or cause you to progress in your career? I realized that persistence is one of those that has come up again and again over the last 10 years of being involved in job openings from all angles.  I am not saying this is right or wrong, this is only  my observation over the years working with many different hiring managers, HR professionals, candidates, and my own job searches.

Persistence can be displayed in your behaviors with past jobs, projects and personal endeavors. It can also be found when trying to schedule an in person meeting, continuing to call back to find out an answer after the interview, continuing to maintain contact even when there is not a job opening at the company you want to work for. These same things also indicate a healthy level of want for both the job and the organization. If a hiring manager isn't convinced you truly want the job, you will not be receiving an offer. Showing persistence is a great way to accomplish this.

When it comes to interviewing to uncover past behavioral patterns, tenacity can even be viewed as form of persistence. If a candidate has a track record of overcoming challenging situations where others might choose not to, this is an indicator they will likely behave the same way in the future.

All of this is for naught though if a candidate does not have humility. For example, I had a position come down to candidates last week and one had a track record of persistence and slightly more "conventional experience than the other. The second candidate had an equal amount of persistence but had a lifetime of humility built into his experiences.

We hired the second candidate quickly after completing the full interview process. This is a personal example but I have seen it time and again over the last 10 years. Most hiring managers don't spend a lot of time interviewing, they spend time leading people in their respective industries. This means that they will often hire people that they subjectively feel comfortable with. Persistence without humility is a little like a nice car sitting on the side of the road after running out of gas; it might look good but eventually people realize it is not going anywhere. Persistence will come off as arrogance, annoying or even worse without humility.

These are a few (not all) of the qualities that give others a positive impression of job candidates.  I would encourage you to evaluate yourself in these two categories (persistence and tenacity.)

What other subjective qualities do you think make or break hiring decisions? (Good or Bad)

The Greatest Resume Ever!... And Why NOT to Write it

As a professional in Human Resources for the last ten years and as someone who provides guidance in the area of career development and working in your passion, I get asked about resumes all the time. I get asked to look at resumes, what makes a resume stand out, what format it should be in, I have even been asked whether it  is appropriate to include an 8 x 10 glossy photo. By the way the answer to that question is no, unless of course you are a model, trying to get a spot in a photo shoot or just want to ensure that your chances for getting an interview are slim to none.

 At the risk of providing some well known (but rarely acted upon) advice, here are 3 + 1 steps I would suggest to answer all resume questions.

Step 1: Ask the right question

Step 2: Create a job posting checklist

Step 3: Get your "Push and Pull" on

Step 3 +1: Create your own opportunities

Step 1: Ask the right questions

Ask yourself a different question besides "is this a great resume?": You do not want to provide "generalized" resumes (no matter how great you think they are) to anyone unless you are at a "career fair" or networking type event. Instead ask yourself "how do you tailor each resume to the needs of the organization first, and the individual job posting second?"

Here is why: If you have a recruiter or HR person screening resumes (you will find this in organizations of 150 people or more) then they will be looking in less than 30 seconds, does this have all the needs listed in the job posting? If not you will likely be screened out. Period. Third party online submittals like careerbuilder.com and indeed.com, and company website application processes have become the norm over the last 10+ years. This means that it is not uncommon to get hundreds of applications for a single position since it is so easy to apply.

Step 2: Create a checklist

Tailoring each resume sounds really great in theory but how do you really do that? I have discovered that most people feel like they are doing this already, but when I view the job posting and look at the resume, it is clear that they do not line up. Somebody somewhere took the time to create this job posting, it is really the cheat sheet to the resume test. The easiest way to make sure you are tailoring your resume is to print off a copy of the job posting and then to take a pen or highlighter going down each section like a checklist.  Use this by comparing it to your resume to find out where the gaps are.

Why to do this:  There are large numbers of well qualified people submitting great "generalized" resumes. So... to stand out tailor your entire resume EVERY time. Is it a pain? Yes. Do most people do this? No. Remember resumes do not get you the job, interviews and in person meetings get you the job. A truly tailored resume gets you a much better shot at that in person meeting which in turn is the only way you have a chance at getting the job.

Step 3: Get your "Push and Pull" on

The method of tailoring and submitting your resume discussed above is the push part of the equation, the pull part of the equation is not difficult in any way, but most people are unwilling to do it.

Start by researching who the hiring manager is for the job posting or who may have a vested interest in the decision making process. You can do this by researching LinkedIn.com, givin' the ol' Google a try, or if all else fails simply call the person who works at the front desk, be very nice and see what information you can find out from a simple conversation. Company phone directories are also very helpful in getting contact information especially after you know who you need to talk to and have their full name.

After you know the "who" and "how" to contact them. Give them a call and simply explain that you are interested in the organization and want to find out more about what they are looking for in a person for the position that's open. Listen to (and write down) everything thing they say and then give them a thirty second synopsis of who you are and how you can help them. This includes what your background experience is, what you provide that others don't, and why you are interested in the role. Remember: 30 seconds and you have already heard both exactly what they are looking for and have a job posting as a cheat sheet to guide what information you feel will be valuable for the hiring manager to know.  After  you do this go in for the close; ask if you can schedule 15-20 minutes with them to discuss the role.

Why on earth would you do all of this: I have personally been a part of over 2000 interviews for multiple organizations as both an HR professional and a Hiring Manager, and I have had maybe 50 people call and speak to me directly. What this means for you is simply this is a job search method that very few people are using so it is an easy way to get a free pass to the interview stage while at the same time making it easier for hiring managers too. Think about it; you have limited time as a manager, someone calls you up that meets the qualifications of the job AND obviously goes above and beyond by taking the time to find out about the company the job and contact you, even if you choose not to schedule the interview you are definitely going to make mention of it to the recruiter or HR team working on filling the position.

Step 3 +1: Be Proactive and Create your own job opportunities

Are you reaching out to organizations that you are interested in and setting up times to meet with the individuals that have the ability to hire you? If so, great keep it up, I am sure you are already generating interviews and meet and greets and this will lead you towards the job of your dreams much faster than anything I can tell you about a resume. If not, this is the next step.

In his book 48 Days to the Work you Love, author Dan Miller suggests the fantastic idea of making a list of companies that you are interested in working with regardless of whether or not they have positions available. I believe that this is a great idea because if you already have a relationship with the company guess who they will likely go to if they have a need later on.

 You could easily begin by using the research techniques in Step 3. Then make a phone call simply explaining that you are really interested in their organization and that you would love to schedule 15 minutes with them even if they don't have a position open now.  Ultimately the jobs that you are looking for are probably going to be hired from a previous relationship, so as you already know, your focus has to be on establishing the relationship groundwork to truly be considered for a position now or opportunity down the road.

The points I detailed above generated me about 20 meetings/interviews and 5 job offers last time I was searching for a new opportunity. All of these  things are simple to do but are outside of the comfort zone of most people looking for the position they really want. What really gets you that job or career you desire is not a great resume, but instead being willing to do the things that others will not. My advice to you is to put your focus in areas that generate results and leave everything else to people providing the piling up resumes that may never see the light of day.

Comment: What has worked for you in the past?

Success Will Come to Those... Who are Morning People???

Columbia Gorge Sunset, Copyright Scott Barlow

Years ago I heard a chinese proverb “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to find success for his family.” At first I interpreted this to mean that I could have whatever I wanted as long as I got up early and hustled. The problem with this interpretation was that I started to feel entitled; I'm the one getting up early and working extra hours, how dare you question my quality of work, I'm putting in the time and don't you forget it! This led to no shortage of situations that had me somehow surprised that good things weren't just leaping in the car window as I rolled it down to leave for work each morning. Apparently this desirable and prosperous consequence to early rising doesn't just happen overnight.What I came to learn later on is that the intention behind the quote was much more powerful than the literal meaning of the words themselves: if you are disciplined enough to be able to commit such an act as getting up before the sun rises, that discipline will carry over into other areas of your lives. Once you have intentionally developed that type of day in and day out discipline you will slowly become prepared to do the things you were meant to do. 

This is such an interesting concept because so few people are willing to behave in this way that it is almost certain that you will find success through this type of discipline. This of course is contingent upon this discipline being focused in the areas that you want to experience success. Oddly enough this is where I see the biggest lack of discipline for most people pursuing a new career. Everyone wants to do it, very few are willing to put in the time and focus to do what is necessary.

No one wants to have to spend 40-50 hours a week at their current job and then overtime hours on your own to pursue what they really want to do. This is what it takes though. If you want to move into something you are passionate about and truly enjoy doing it is not only difficult but it is worth it. If you get up at 5am each day it becomes easy to find the time to tailor your resume to a new job opportunity, work on developing a side business or interest, or simply be able to plan effectively because everyone else is in bed. I am currently using this principle of getting up early right now to write this blog. It's unlikely I would be able to find time during the rest of the day to have any consecutive coherent thoughts to put in print. 

The big takeaway here is this; there isn't anyone who's found success, that is saying that getting up early wasn't worth it. I believe that, as I have experienced in my own life, that as you experience true success (career) in one area it impacts other areas of your life (family). 

So go have a positive impact on your family and your career. All you have to do is get up...and then the next day get up...and then the next day...

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