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#Leadership : The Secret To #Teamwork Isn’t Managing Personalities Stop Trying to Turn Everyone into “Team Players.”…Here’s How to Set a Baseline that Everybody can Commit To–No Matter How Different they Are.

January 9, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

When I started out as an illustrator and designer, I focused way too much on myself. I thought I was only expected to do the work I was skilled at, figuring that the task of getting everyone on my team to pull together was our boss’s job, not mine.

That assumption wound up hurting me. I didn’t understand how to communicate. I followed my own agenda, unwittingly adding to team drama with unhelpful gossip. And when one of my first performance reviews included a critique from my supervisor that I wasn’t a “team player,” I actually took it as a compliment: “Team players” were losers, and I was a uniquely gifted winner. I quit soon afterward.

It took me a while to shake that egotism–and learn not only that teamwork makes everybody’s work better, but also that you don’t have to surrender your personality to be a team player. As a manager, I’ve since learned how to ask employees to focus more on their team without having to downplay their individual strengths and quirks. The secret is simple: It all comes down to the norms you set.

GETTING TO KNOW YOUR NORMS

Norms, for starters, are expected shared behavior. No matter what they consist of, they’re the known but mostly unspoken “way we do things around here.”

Teams can have strikingly different social behaviors and still produce exceptional work. I’ve seen teams with an informal brainstorming process–they always went off track during team meetings–be just as successful as extremely formal teams that were totally goal-focused. What matters isn’t the style of behavior, but that all team members feel good about that style.

This also leaves room for individuals to improvise and do their own thing. If one team member’s approach to a certain task differs from her coworkers but they’re similar in style (if not substance), chances are they’ll still be able to collaborate. The norms govern a certain set of behaviors that bind the team members together. As long as everyone’s broadly in sync with them, you won’t need to spell out a best practice for every single task or activity. In general, norms must accomplish these five things:

Guide how much personal sharing is part of team meetings.
Determine how critical feedback is shared and how praise is used.
Keep the group from splitting into cliques and factions.
Be inclusive and serve as a binding agent that holds everyone together, even when opinions differ significantly.
Prove strong enough to ensure that even divisive opinions are respected and encouraged (since they’re often where the best solutions come from).

If a team member or leader breaks with these norms, they do so at the risk of diverting the team’s attention away from the shared goal. Best of all? Encouraging and enforcing your team norms frees managers from having to do the impossible and “manage” their team members’ personalities.

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EMBODYING YOUR TEAM’S NORMS

Once you’ve identified your norms, it’s easy to draw up more specific guidelines that reflect them. Here are a few that I’ve found are especially helpful for managing teams of creative people whose personalities may be more likely to clash:

Manners matter. Civility provides a feeling of safety. Once civility becomes the norm, it’s easier for team members to do work that challenges each other as well as conventional wisdom. As long as you can be civil in the way you disagree with each other, you can put forward radically different ideas in pursuit of a shared goal.

Inclusion. If civility helps everyone feel respected by their coworkers, inclusion is what lets everybody feel equally valued and empowered. In meetings, for example, this norm might dictate that all team members speak for roughly an equal amount of time. Those who really listen to each other feel respected, included, and at ease sharing decision-making power evenly.

Dependability. For the team to succeed, each member must not only commit to doing their share of the work, they must also complete it on time. The simple tenet of always doing your part and honoring your commitments is fundamental to any cohesive team.

Role clarity. Each team member has to know their own role, be completely committed to it, and understand how it supports the roles of the others. This is what gives team members confidence in their value to the group and in their colleagues’ contributions.

Higher purpose. Everybody needs to grasp why we’re doing what we’re doing and believe that it matters. That underlying sense of purpose is (ideally, anyway) what motivates everyone to make an earnest effort individually.

Honest critique. This one is sometimes under-appreciated, but effective teamwork depends on being able to step back and question how the work is progressing and whether it’s serving the goals. Effective critiques challenge and examine different approaches, thinking, and methods, sometimes leading to a change in direction. This type of feedback needs to focus on the work, not the person who did it; done wrong, criticism can stir up vulnerable feelings of not being good enough rather than strengthen everybody’s stake in the process.

Healthy controversy. Seemingly risky or silly ideas are essential to collaboration. Encourage your team members to ask challenging questions and look for unusual solutions. A committed, supportive team creates an emotional environment where controversy can flourish and be positively channeled.

No bad behavior. Damaging interpersonal behavior is off-limits. That means no personal gossip, no back-channeling, no undermining, and no shaming or blaming.

You’ll notice that these norms and guidelines don’t have much to say on the question of personality type–and that’s by design. Rather than managers or team members adapting their approach to the personality of whoever they’re working with at a given moment, norms set a common baseline. This way, everyone knows how to behave to be a “team player”–even though they may be a proud individualist at the same time.

FastCompany.com | January 9, 2017

Your #Career : Here’s What To Do When Common #CareerAdvice Doesn’t Work For You.. When working with your Former Company’s Sponsored ‘highly processing’ #OutplacementServices & Programs. Here is What you Can Do on your Own.

January 8, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

“After Cattle Call Meeting to Simply Sign Up on their Website. Now What??”
You’re smart enough to spot bad career advice, but what about when you get good advice that you know works for a lot of people, but doesn’t work for you?

It can be tempting to throw your hands in the air and say “I give up.” But this isn’t your only option. Here are some ideas on what you can do when following common career advice isn’t bringing you much success.

INSTEAD OF: BE SPECIFIC ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT

TRY: BROADENING YOUR HORIZONS AND LOOKING FOR WHERE THE DEMANDS ARE

We’re often advised to be specific and strategic about what we’re after. While this might be great advice for some, others might find that this approach yields little results for them–particularly when they’re trying to land their first entry-level job.

These days, it’s no longer enough to have a college degree, candidates need to have work experience, whether it be through internships or part-time gigs. But sometimes, even that isn’t enough. Marketing professional and freelance writer Brittney Oliver witnessed this when she embarked on her post-college job search. Despite five internships under her belt, it took her eight months and over 100 interviews before she landed her first job.

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As Oliver previously wrote in Fast Company, being a woman of color presented her with additional challenges that her white peers might not have had to face. But considering that the interviewers’ unconscious bias wasn’t something she had much control over, she focused on what she could control. When she started her job search, Oliver had her sights only on PR jobs in New York City. But after struggling to secure a position, she saw her peers turn their degrees into “transferable skills that helped them land jobs outside of their fields.” She began to do the same.

This was also a strategy that Sydney Brunson, a diversity programs specialist at Pinterest, employed. Brunson told Oliver, “had I solely focused on jobs and careers in public relations or communications, my story might be different. I would encourage students to broaden their horizons and scope when searching for jobs.”

Another practical tip could be to look for roles that companies have difficulty filling. Ify Walker, founder of talent matchmaking firm Offor Walker Group, suggested that candidates who are having trouble landing jobs should try to put themselves “in places where others might say, ‘I don’t want to do that, or that’s too hard.’”

INSTEAD OF: EXPAND YOUR NETWORK

TRY: FIGURE OUT HOW YOU CAN HELP OTHERS IN YOUR EXISTING NETWORK

It’s true that having a large professional network never hurts, and you never know what opportunities could come out of new interactions. But if, like most people, your time is limited, making yourself attend three to four networking events a week in attempts to “widen your network” might not be the best use of your time.

Chances are, you probably have a few people in your current network that can help you get ahead. Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew, cofounders of career site The Muse, listed these types of people in their book, The New Rules Of Work: The Modern Playbook For Navigating Your Career. From those who hold similar positions to you, people related to your industry or role but with different responsibilities, the person one or two levels ahead of you and even the newbie who just started their careers–these are all valuable relationships to cultivate.

Of course, it goes without saying that in order to reap the benefits, you have to be willing to give. For example, you might recommend a candidate to your senior coworker when you hear that they’re hiring. When it comes to those who have a similar job to you, you might share your learnings and lessons and act as each other’s “buddies” when you do attend a big event.

INSTEAD OF: FIND A MENTOR

TRY: FOCUS ON MAKING YOURSELF MORE VALUABLE

No one really “makes it” on their own, so it’s no surprise that many successful people attribute their success to the help of others. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the idea that for our careers to have any chance of flourishing, we need to have a go-to mentor–a leader in our field who we can turn to for advice in times of trouble. Oh and they need to be as equally invested in our careers as we are.

Of course, finding a person like this is definitely great for your career, but busy and important people don’t always have time to be unpaid career coaches. And plenty of successful people have had thriving careers without one consistent mentor (WeWork’s CEO and cofounder Adam Neumann is a great example). Having a mentor is not the be all and end all to your career.

Instead of focusing on what you can get, focus on what you can give. You can start with doing this at work, by making sure that you’re fulfilling every aspect of your job description, and going above and beyond when possible. Then you can also position yourself to “get in on what the higher ups” are saying, as Fast Company‘s Rich Bellis wrote in a previous article.

There are several ways to do this if you’re a junior employee–you can ask your boss directly to see if they can fill you in on what they discussed at the leadership meeting, or you can muster the courage to introduce yourself to the company’s leaders when you see them around the office. You’ll not only gain valuable insights about how your company works, but you might develop a relationship with someone who literally has control over your career.

INSTEAD OF: BUILD AND CULTIVATE A PERSONAL BRAND

TRY: FOCUS ON DEEPENING YOUR EXPERTISE IN YOUR FIELD

In the age of social media influencers, it’s easy to get fixated on making our online presence as polished (and popular) as possible. But unless your job title is social media marketer, at some point, you’ll probably see diminishing returns to all this self-promotion–particularly when the time you spend trying to gain followers on Instagram is cutting into the time you’re spending on your actual work.

In his book Perennial Seller: The Art Of Making And Marketing Work That Lasts, marketer and writer Ryan Holiday stressed that if you want to create a product that will stand the test of time, you have to create a great product. He wrote, “even the best admen will admit that, over the long term, all the marketing in the world won’t matter if the product hasn’t been made right.”

The same logic can apply to our careers. If we’re not good at what we do, no amount of retweets and likes will hide that fact. As entrepreneur John Rampton wrote in a previous Fast Company article, “It’s one thing to tout your best qualities and another to push them so hard that you fall into false marketing.”

INSTEAD OF: PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE

TRY: PUT YOURSELF IN SITUATIONS THAT LET YOU BE YOUR BEST

Many of us have a conventional idea of what success looks like. Go for the biggest job and opportunity, have lots of powerful friends, make a lot of money.

For some people, this “overachieving” mind-set is a surefire recipe for disaster and exhaustion, as Morra Aarons-Mele wrote in her book, Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home). She wrote, “If you need more control over your space, pace, and place of work than others, the traditional career-ladder approach to success is all the more daunting–and possibly futile.”

Aarons-Mele went on to write, “But let me be clear: When introverts like me realize that the success they’re chasing isn’t making them happy, it’s not because they’re lazy or unambitious.” Rather, it’s about understanding what environments make you perform at your best, and what environments make you struggle–and embracing it. After all, life doesn’t require you to conform to society’s perceived idea of career success. What that looks like to you is wholly up to you to decide.

FastCompany.com | January 8, 2018 | BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON 6 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : Starting A #SideProject In 2018? Here’s How To Make It Successful..While some #Projects go on to Become a Full-Time Business, Even the Ones that Eventually Fizzle Out Serve an Important Purpose.

January 7, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

For businesses, giving resources and time to side projects has proven over and over to be worth it. Slack, everyone’s favorite communication hub, started life as a simple tool for a group of game developers.

“While some projects do go on to become a full-time business, even the ones that eventually fizzle out serve an important purpose. Building and launching a side project is about the experience, and the people you meet along the way.”

Side projects help us uncover new interests, promote divergent thinking (one of the building blocks of creativity), and can potentially take your life in an unexpected direction. However, that’s also what makes them scary. They require time and money–and more importantly, you’ll need enough motivation from the meaning the side project brings to keep going when it’s tough.

So what makes a personal side project successful? After reading the stories of 10 creators, I found these 7 common “ingredients” for starting, building, and launching a successful personal side project.

1. FIND SOMETHING THAT SITS BETWEEN “THINGS YOU ENJOY” AND “SKILLS YOU WANT TO BUILD”

As Julie Zhou, product design VP at Facebook and avid side project champion explains, “Side projects work best when they live at the interaction of ‘Things you enjoy’ and ‘Things that help you practice a marketable skill.’”

While this is simple in theory, it can quickly get murky. Start a side project solely because it will help you get ahead in your own job and you run the risk of that project becoming just an extension of your work. Rather than feeling motivated to spend time on it, you’ll approach it just like another task on your work to-do list.

However, if your project doesn’t help you build a skill you can use in other parts of your life, you’re just having fun. Which is fine, of course. But won’t necessarily bring in a level of meaning to your life.

The goal then, as Zhou explains, is to find that sweet spot in the middle. A good litmus test is that side projects are typically productive, not consumptive. That’s not to say side projects have to be 100% focused on production.

For example, you may be interested in building an app, but not (yet) have the technical skills to do it. So step one would be to take an online course on app development. Then, throughout the course, you could work on the app, knowing it will take a while, but always with that goal keeping you motivated.

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2. TREAT YOUR SIDE PROJECTS AS EXPERIMENTS

The hard thing about side projects is that there’s a lot more of us in them than in our usual work. When you’re having an off day in the office or on a work project, it can be easy to push through. You’re getting paid for this after all, right?

But when we’re doing something for ourselves, that mental strategy for motivating us falls short. According to freelance web designer-turned entrepreneur Paul Jarvis, to get over this hump, we need to treat our side projects as experiments.

“Experiments don’t “fail”—they simply prove or disprove a hypothesis. For example, despite my day job as a designer I had the hypothesis that I could also write an e-book. I then simply started writing. I didn’t focus on the outcome, how the book would be received or what others would think of it. I figured, ‘let’s give this a try’.”

The point here is that you’re simply trying something out with your side project. Rather than place the same level of importance on your side project as you do on your job, focus on getting something done. Getting early results will help you learn and grow.

3. PITCH YOURSELF

If you want your side project to be more than just a hobby, successful creators say you need to learn how to talk about it.

Before he built multiple startups (which all started as side projects) and created one of the largest design communities in Israel, Sagi Shrieber was just another design student with one side interest: He felt passionately about starting the first design blog written in Hebrew. Rather than building it in private, however, Sagi took the stage at a local event and told the 300+ room what he was doing and when he would launch (even though he didn’t have anything made yet).

Going public with your side project can give you the momentum to go through with it and also help you find a community of like-minded people to help you along the way.

4. CHARGE FOR YOUR WORK

Selling seems antithetical to creation. One is pure, unadulterated originality, the other simply squeezing hard-earned dollars and cents out of another person. But if you want your side project to be a success (and it’s something you plan on selling), this is the wrong way to think about it.

Successful side project creators don’t think about price, they think about value. If you value the work you’re doing, and you’re creating something that has meaning to you, then there should be someone else out there who feels the same way.

As a full-time marketing director, Noah Kagan was no stranger to the art of sales. Yet, when he launched his side project, AppSumo, he still fell into the trap of feeling guilty about asking for money. To get over this awkwardness about pricing, Noah reminds himself of a few simple facts every time he launches a new side project:

Whatever you’re doing, you’re creating value for someone else.
People pay for time. If you make something that helps them save time, they’ll feel good about paying for it.”
It’s human nature to feel better about things we pay for. Going the free route isn’t always the best way if you want people to take your side project seriously.

5. FIND PARTNERS, COLLABORATORS, AND CHAMPIONS

Side projects are a great opportunity to not only learn new skills, but to work with people you’ve always wanted to. When we let other people into our creative process, we learn to challenge thoughts and values that have been so stubbornly ingrained in us.

When you’re planning your project, think about who you could include. Who would be a good partner? Who could you ask for feedback from early on? Who will challenge the way you think and push you into uncharted territory?

6. BE OKAY WITH FAILURE

Big, audacious goals are great. But focusing too much on the potential end result of your side project can kill your motivation and leave you drained and bitter if things don’t go exactly as planned (and they never do).

Over the course of interviewing hundreds of people who’ve launched and grown side projects over the past few years, entrepreneur and side project coach Ryan Robinson found that the benefits aren’t always what they seemed at the beginning:

“While some projects do go on to become a full-time business, even the ones that eventually fizzle out serve an important purpose. Building and launching a side project is about the experience, and the people you meet along the way.”

FastCompany.com | January 6, 2018 | Zapier.com

Your #Career : Here’s How to Answer 5 of the Most Difficult #InterviewQuestions … The #Interview is an Elimination Process. The #Employer is trying to Weed out Those Who are Not the Most Worthy of the Position.

January 6, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

You reworked your resume, perfected your cover letter and landed the big interview. But walking through the door is only the beginning — especially if the interviewer throws some hard-hitting questions your way and you don’t know how to respond.

“The interview is an elimination process,” says Dr. Thomas J. Denham, a career counselor at Careers in Transition LLC in Colonie, New York. “The employer is trying to weed out those who are not the most worthy of the position.”

Here, Denham offers some advice on how to answer five of the toughest interview questions:

1. What is your biggest weakness?

Strelka Institute/Flickr

Questions like these, says Denham, are asked so that interviewees admit a weakness that justifies their being shown the door. He recommends responding with: “I have a tendency to say yes and get over-committed.” Then follow that with an example of how you are working on prioritizing and setting personal limits. Never draw negative attention to yourself by stating a weakness that would lead an employer to think you are not the best person for the job, Denham says. “The focus of your interview should be on your strengths,” he says.

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2. What salary do you think you deserve?

“The person who states the salary is the loser,” says Denham, explaining that if you are the first to throw out a number, the number you give could be less than what the employer was planning to pay. Wait for the employer to give a range, and when it does ask you for a figure you expect to be making, choose a salary that is higher than the median they provide. Use our salary tool to find out what you can realistically expect. Also, don’t talk salary on the first interview.

3. Why should I hire you?

Strelka Institute/Flickr

For this one, Denham says it’s important to prepare before the interview. “Go back to your resume and look through it for the three to five things that make you outstanding,” he says. These qualities should accent your work ability, like “I’m a hard worker” or “I get things done.” You have to demonstrate a track record of results. “The notion is that past performance is always the best predictor of future performance,” Denham says.

4. What didn’t you like about your last job?

The employer who asks this question could be looking for you to answer with something that would indicate a weakness of yours, once again in an attempt to eliminate you. So while it may be tempting to trash your boss or complain about the hours (they expected me to be in at 8 a.m.!), try answering with something like this: “I did not feel my responsibilities were challenging enough.” Then the employer will feel confident that you are ready for whatever they may throw at you.

5. Where do you see yourself in three to five years?

Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design/flickr

The worst answer you can provide to this one, Denham says, is “I have no idea,” even though that might be the truth. “It’s basically like saying, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing with my life and I have no idea how long I’ll stay with this job,'” Denham says. Try a response like “I’ve done a lot of self-assessment, and what I’ve learned about myself is that I want to make a commitment to this career and I want to build my career here.”

Answering tough interview questions is just one step in landing the job. There’s follow-up interviews, salary negotiation, then making a great impression when you start working. Join Monster and you’ll have access to expert job search advice, plus job alerts sent to your inbox.

Career expert and best-selling author of Girl on Top, Nicole Williams is redefining the world of work—making it glamorous, entertaining and relevant to modern women. Her Web site, Nicolewilliams.com, is the go-to destination site for modern working women.

FastCompany.com | January 5, 2018 | Nicole Williams, Monster

#Leadership : How To Deliver Your #Presentation In Half The Time You’d Allotted…Talking Faster During a Presentation is a Bad Idea. Here are a Few Better Ones.

January 5, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s the day of your big presentation. You’ve spent the last few weeks fine-tuning every detail. You rehearsed last night, and you were flawless. You’ve never felt more prepared.

But then you hear something that makes your stomach drop: “Sorry, but we’re going to need you to keep this to 10 minutes.” You’d planned for 20. How can you possibly pull it off in half the time?

Your first instinct is to just try and talk faster and maybe breeze past a less-important point or two–hopefully you can still cram in everything else, even if it’s a little rushed? Nope, wrong strategy.Nobody can be effective speaking in hyperspeed. Here’s what to do instead.

GIVE YOUR CONCLUSION FIRST

If you have only one takeaway from this article, make sure it’s this one: Always state your conclusion first. Running out of time before getting your key message across is devastating. So don’t wait. Get to the point right away, no matter what. You may worry that your core message is kind of complicated and takes a little bit of background to spell out. Even so, get it out there first and then use your remaining time to fill in the context. If you can’t put your finger on what that essential conclusion actually is, though, you may have a bigger problem (but here’s how to solve it).

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SPEAK EITHER IN “LAYERS” OR “MODULES”

Sometimes you may have a hunch that things could change and your talk might get cut short–which is great, because it gives you a chance to line up some contingency plans. There are two methods you can use to design your presentation with flexibility in mind so you can still manage to get through everything, even if you’re given less time:

Layering. This approach simply means designing your presentation from the inside out. The inner “layer” is your key message–the most important takeaway you want your audience to leave with. The next layer consists of your other major points that directly support that key message. Then you have the details that support those key points–which together make up a third layer. Think of it kind of like dressing for cold weather: If you get too warm, you can always take off a layer. Similarly, if you get short on time, you can take off one of the outer layers. What’s really important is that you communicate your inner layers effectively.

For example, let’s say you’re presenting about a project you’d like to get approval for. With the layering approach, you’d first deliver your key message about seeking approval for your project, followed by the supporting arguments and fundamental issues–the main benefits to approving the project, the outcomes it will deliver, and the challenges you may face. If you’re pressed for time, you’d simply leave out any additional details beyond that and stick just to those key points.

Modularizing. This means designing your presentation in “modules” that you can eliminate if necessary. While you still give your key message first, you don’t share all of your key points right away (even if they’re all relatively equally important). Instead, you leave out some of the points altogether, depending on how much time you have. The thinking here is that it’s better to do a great job spelling out just one supporting argument, than doing a mediocre job rushing through three of them. Think of it like going to dinner: You may want to skip either appetizers or dessert if you’re worried you’ll be late for the movie you bought tickets for.

So to continue the example from earlier, you’d deliver your key message, followed by your first key point (the reasons why the project should be approved) along with any relevant details. Then, if you have time, you can go over your next key point (intended outcomes of the project), along with those details. If you’re pressed for time, you’d drop the “challenges” point entirely.

ADJUST YOUR SLIDES ACCORDINGLY (OR MAKE MULTIPLE VERSIONS)

Finally, if you sense your presentation time might get cut down, you should design your slide deck to adapt–reflecting either a layered or modular approach, depending on which one you’d prefer taking. Or you could just save a couple different versions of your deck so you can pick the right one depending on the circumstances. At any event, when your time gets cut short and you’re forced to give an abbreviated presentation, having your slides out of order is going frustrate you as well as your audience. It’s much better to create either a few different slide decks or one that will work in any situation.

While time is one factor you may not be able to control, how you use it is.

FastCompany.com | January 5, 2018

Your #Career : Six Steps To Get Promoted This Year…This is your Guide to Fast Track your Career in 2018.

January 5, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s a brand new year, and you’ve decided that it’s time to kick your career into high gear. Whether you’re gunning for a promotion or simply want to improve your performance, these six steps can move closer to your goal.

CHECK YOUR DIRECTION

Before you commit to moving forward on your current career path, take a moment to review where you are. How do you feel about your work? Are you happy? It’s harder to be successful in an area for which you don’t feel passion or a sense of purpose, says New York City-based career counselor and executive coach Roy Cohen, author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide.

“No matter what advice we give ourselves, if we really don’t enjoy the work itself, these tips and tricks won’t necessarily work for the long term. They won’t have staying power,” he says.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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BUILD YOUR PLAN

A career plan includes your short-term (three- to six-month), medium-term (six months to several-year), and long-term (five- to 10-year) goals, as well as a list of tasks or actions you’ll need to complete to achieve them, says Cheryl E. Palmer, owner of Colesville, Maryland-based career coaching firm Call to Career. Looking at where you want to be 5 or 10 years from now can be overwhelming, she says. But when you think about what you can accomplish in the next three to six months, it becomes easier to visualize and accomplish, and builds the foundation and direction for more long-term achievements, she says.

“They all tie together but it helps to break them down like that, so that you actually know what it is you’re trying to accomplish and within which time frame,” Palmer says.

Angelina Darrisaw, founder of The C-Suite Coach, a New York career coaching firm, advocates planning quarter by quarter. When you build your plan that way, you can see the natural progression, but it also shines a light on what needs to happen for your plan to be fulfilled, she says.

“You start to make a list [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][and see] what am I missing, are there any gaps in relationships I might need to have, and stakeholders at work that I might need to be engaging and developing a relationship with. Maybe there are some credentials that I’m lacking, and I need to see if my company has some training that I can take advantage of or tuition reimbursement programs that I can leverage to fill in those gaps,” she says.

UNDERSTAND–AND ENGAGE–SPONSORS AND MENTORS

Finding someone who can give you advice and help you move your career forward can be invaluable–but those two roles are often misunderstood, says Kim Powell, principal with Chicago-based leadership and change management consulting firm ghSMART and co-author of The CEO Next Door: The 4 Behaviors That Transform Ordinary People Into World Class Leaders. A mentor is someone who can give you advice and act as a sounding board with the added benefit of experience. A sponsor is someone who is in a position to take action on your behalf, she says.

In research findings detailed in her book, Powell says she looked at “sprinters”–people who got to the C-suite faster than average. Roughly half had sponsors. “They worked with these individuals thoughtfully. They shared aspirations, not problems. They linked to what was relevant to the sponsor. They made requests easy to fulfill, and most importantly, they followed through relentlessly. Meaning, they’re very reliable. So the sponsor made an introduction or did something for them. They didn’t let that ball drop,” she says.

Mentors, on the other hand, can give you guidance and add an objective, experienced voice to help you make decisions. When looking for a mentor, be sure to choose someone who can devote the time you need, Cohen advises. Even well-intentioned mentors who are too busy may not be effective.

LOOK FOR RESOURCES YOU ALREADY HAVE

Depending on the culture of your company and what you hope to achieve, Darrisaw says it may be a good idea to share your goals with your manager to help you advance your career. “For the most part, most managers do want to see their people succeed and do well and achieve what it is that makes them happy,” she says. “They’re able to look at where you are with a different perspective and can be very helpful in engaging with you in filling out those gaps that you might have. So, making sure that they’re aware of what it is that you want so they can help present opportunities to you.

Palmer adds that it might be time to become more of a “joiner.” If you’re part of a larger organization, look for committees, projects, or task forces you can get involved with. If you’re part of a smaller organization, look for ways to take on new responsibilities and make a difference. She shares one caveat, though: Be sure you’re working in areas that matter to the company and will move you toward your goals. It’s easy to find ways to be busy that either aren’t aligned with what the leadership values or that won’t develop skills or visibility you need. So, choose these added efforts wisely.

LEARN HOW TO SHOWCASE–WITHOUT SHOWBOATING

In order to be considered for promotions or other advancement, it’s important that leaders know your abilities and accomplishments. But, being braggadocios isn’t the way to win. “We call it the self-interest torpedo. If you come across as trying to self-promote, it can be a torpedo from a career perspective. So, the trick around building visibility is really around how you go about doing it,” she says.

Finding the right sponsors who will toot your horn for you helps, she says. In addition, if it’s possible to be thoughtful about the boss you have, choose someone who is generous about sharing credit. Building a reputation for being reliable and for following through was also common among the fast-track CEOs she and her team studied. With the right approach, you can let people know your contributions without overselling yourself.

RALLY SUPPORT AT HOME

One area that rising professionals often overlook is support at home, Cohen says. Putting in more time at the office or being more focused on your career may mean that a partner or family members need to make sacrifices. Discuss these potential changes and be sure that the people in your life understand or work out compromises for work/life balance. Resistance or conflict at home or within your support system can be distracting and drain energy that you could be devoting to your goals.

FastCompany.com | January 5, 2018

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Your #Career : Four Reasons Resumes No Longer Work…Today, 87% of #Recruiters use #LinkedIn to Vet #Candidates during the #HiringProcess , & Traditional #Resumes are Becoming Obsolete. According to Experts, “Titles and Years of Experience are No Longer a Person’s Number-One Currency.”

January 5, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

When you’re job-hunting, a resume used to be the quickest way to get your foot in the door, but that’s not necessarily true anymore. Today, 87% of recruiters use LinkedIn to vet candidates during the hiring process, and traditional resumes are becoming obsolete.

Technology has changed the marketplace, and HR is the only vertical that hasn’t seen a rapid transition, says Carisa Miklusak, CEO of the algorithmic hiring platform tilr. “Right now tech isn’t giving people a fair opportunity to compete,” she says. “Before you blame the resume, you need to understand that they’re a byproduct of old employer values. Titles and years of experience are no longer a person’s number-one currency.”

Traditional resumes have four issues that can make it difficult to win a new job:

1. THEY FOCUS ON EXPERIENCE OVER SKILLS

Past generations valued years of experience, and traditional resumes convey this information by offering a chronological snapshot of your employment history. Today, however, candidates are being judged and employed based on their ability to perform–something that doesn’t easily come across on a resume, says Miklusak.

“Employers are interested in skills and the results someone can generate, rather than titles or previous employment,” she says. “Focusing on skills provides a fuller understanding of the candidate’s experience and capabilities, and opens up more opportunities.”

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. THEY’RE ORGANIZED BY JOB TITLES

Traditional resumes use job titles as headings, but these aren’t always as clear as employers would like. Creative names, like “success ambassador” and “office ninja,” make it difficult to understand what a candidate does, and there is no uniform use of titles.

“When resumes are uploaded into employer databases, crawlers can have a hard time with titles and keywords,” says Miklusak. “New titles are used every day that didn’t exist prior, and they don’t always give a clear picture of someone’s skillset.”

3. THEY’RE STATIC

Candidates have to acquire new skills to stay current, and employers are often purchasing new technology that employees need to master, but resumes are static, requiring frequent revisions.

“Unless you update it each week, a resume becomes outdated by the time you need to submit or forward it,” says Miklusak. While updating your LinkedIn profile provides real-time ease, it’s flawed, too. “You’re still subject to your last job title leading off your experience,” she says.

4. THEY’RE CUMBERSOME IN THE GIG ECONOMY

Using a resume to find workers for on-demand positions is inefficient and costly for companies. “There is a skill gap in the economy, and we don’t have enough workers to fill current jobs,” says Miklusak. “Resumes slow the process down, and we have unemployed people who still can’t find jobs.”

In addition, a lot of qualified workers don’t want to be bothered. “A gig worker isn’t going to create a resume for a $15/hour holiday work,’” she says.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

For now, resumes are still the standard way of conducting a job search, so make the most of yours until new technology catches up to hiring. If a company requires that you submit your resume online, it’s a good idea to use traditional methods of putting yourself out there, suggests Miklusak. “Submit your resume online and mail it in, including a short paragraph that describes how you can add an immediate benefit to company,” she says. “Summarize your skillset that is relevant to the role and rate your proficiency.”

You can also cold call the hiring manager or HR department to bring attention to your application. “They might receive thousands of resumes, so do something to help cull yours out of that pile,” says Miklusak. “If you’re interested, you’re forced to do something to set yourself apart.”

For gig work, companies are moving to platforms like Upwork, Shiftgig, and tilr. “They’re a better tool to find new candidates instead of wading through resumes,” says Miklusak.

Finally, get out from behind your resume by expanding your network. “When you meet someone who works for a company that interests you, ask if they’re hiring any more people,” says Miklusak. “You still have to have a resume, but presenting it live or over a phone call can help you cut through the noise.”

Employers are starting to reassess their talent strategy moving forward, says Miklusak. “Based on the type of business and type of workers they need, they are finding new ways to recruit and deciding where resumes are relevant and where they aren’t,” she says.

FastCompany.com | January 5, 2018 | BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 3 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : Three Questions You Must Ask If You Want The Job…The #JobSearch Today is more Competitive & Time-Consuming than ever Before. Given this Environment, the Only Recipients of Job Offers are the Applicants who Interview Well & Manage their Job Searches.

January 4, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

At one time or another, we have all made the leap from high school or college to the real world and have likely spent some time on the interviewing circuit. As I recall my first interview experiences, I vividly remember my father’s advice on the art of interviewing. My father, Paul Micali, was a sales trainer, manager, author and public speaker. It’s fascinating to me that his words of wisdom, three decades ago, are even more relevant today.

Through our many interviews, we hopefully all learn the basics: a firm handshake, strong eye contact, smiling, proper posture, body language, tone of voice, key questions, answers and stories. But my father’s advice was all about “how” to end the interview; that time when the interviewer and interviewee have no more to say and look at one another across the desk in awkward silence.

It was at that point that my father explicitly instructed me to ask that all-powerful question — that question that no interviewee ever wants to ask.

“What are my chances of getting this job?”

I couldn’t imagine being so brazen and presumptuous! To make matters worse, I was instructed to ask the question three times in three different ways:

1. What are my chances of getting this job?

2. How soon will you be making a decision?

3. Based on your timeline, can I plan to hear from you in one or two weeks?

It took every ounce of courage I had to muster up the confidence to ask these questions. However, I’m so glad that I did. The answers to these questions provided me with the roadmap to guide and jumpstart my career. Fast forward 30 years, as a talent acquisition consultant and a career coach; I see the absolute necessity for every candidate to ask these questions in an interview.

The job search today is more competitive and time-consuming than ever before. With job postings on LinkedIn, Indeed, Zip Recruiter, company websites and alike, companies are deluged with resumes. Today, each position commands between 250 and 300 applicants with a mere 2% being called in for an interview. A job seeker in today’s market must put forth a patient and disciplined approach in applying for positions online, networking and directly reaching out to companies. Given this environment, the only recipients of job offers are the applicants who interview well and manage their job searches.

Assuming your interview has gone well, you have arrived at the point where “how” you handle the ending can be crucial to your outcome.

Here are three reasons why asking this infamous question, “What are my chances of getting this job?” are crucial to your interview.

1. You will show the interviewer that you are serious about this position and that you want this job.

When someone visibly shows through their words and actions that they want something, they tend to work hard to get it! As the interviewee, you will be displaying to the hiring manager that your meeting has a definite purpose and that you mean business. It may have taken you four weeks to get to this point in the process, and you deserve to know your position in the lineup!

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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2. You will send the signal that you have a productive jobsearch underway.

And that you are weighing different opportunities. In other words, you are interviewing with other companies. You have been proactive in your job search, not waiting around to hear from companies. If you are as good as you think you are and the hiring manager agrees, they won’t waste time and will quickly move your candidacy forward.

3. You will overcome the hiring manager’s potential objections, turning a “no” into a “yes.”

When you ask this question, an honest answer from the interviewer provides you with a snapshot of how he/she sees you in the position. If the hiring manager mentions an area where you may not reach the expectations outlined in the job description, this is your opportunity to overcome their perspective with specific results and stories. If you don’t ask the question, you will miss the chance to turn a “no” into a “yes.” In fact, you will leave the meeting not knowing where you stand in the interviewee lineup!

Of course, if the answer is that your chances are good, then you can continue your pursuit with, “How soon can I expect to hear from you?” and “Can I look forward to speaking with you in two weeks?” These questions will further convey that you remain very interested in the position and would like to know the timeline involved in securing the job.

From the perspectives of the hiring manager, recruiter and career coach, when the interviewee doesn’t ask for the job, we question if the candidate really wants the position.

We have all heard the expression, “Ask better questions and get better answers.”

I challenge you to ask yourself: “Do you want this job?” ….. If the answer is yes, then ask for it, three times!

The answers will give you the roadmap to guide and jumpstart your career and your life.

Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?

Author: Donna Poudrier – Career coach and recruiter Donna Poudrier helps job seekers and new grads find the “right job” to jumpstart their careers.

Forbes.com | January 4, 2018

Your #Career : This Is How To #ChangeCareer Without Spiraling Into The Unknown…Visionary Designer Albert Lee has a Method he calls “Flooring the Downside” to help him Navigate the Uncertainty of making Big Changes.

January 4, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Our careers have a momentum to them that is self-perpetuating. But what happens when we take dramatically different paths? How do you do it without risking it all or starting from zero?

The ability to make these dramatic nonlinear moves is a defining characteristic of many careers of Fast Company‘s Most Creative People In Business, from Genevieve Bell (Most Creative 2009), an anthropologist in a room full of technologists, to Albert Lee (Most Creative 2014), an architect and designer in a room full of investors.

The career paths of these individuals can seem out of reach to most of us because when we read about them, we don’t hear the practical not-talked-about ways people deal with the fears of failing, losing security, and spiraling into the unknown when making nonlinear moves–until now.

Lee is a soft-spoken individual who has become a trusted behind-the-scenes adviser for some of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley. His nonlinear career has taken him from summers working at Alice Waters’s restaurant Chez Panisse to apprenticing as an architect at Frank Gehry’s Studio. Early in his career, a mentor told him to “always do the other thing in the room,” and he has taken that to heart.

When Lee reached a moment of stasis, he would shift. He left the architecture world to become an art director at a design agency, and from there, to business school, where he was the sole designer in a room full of executives. Lee’s actions seem to have a sense of gravity, but he wasn’t always like this. To feel comfortable going against the grain, he uses a technique he calls “flooring his downside.”

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“Flooring the downside” means writing a story that explains failing and returning to what you were doing before you even consider making the transition. These stories prevent you from imagining the bottomless failure that awaits if the transition doesn’t go smoothly.

There are three specific types of stories that you can craft that will not only put a “floor underneath your risk,” but will help propel you forward in your career, even if you return from a nonlinear transition within the first few months.

FIGURE OUT WHAT QUESTION YOU NEED TO ANSWER

Before you take a new path, ask yourself, What question you are trying to answer by taking this new path? In your story, explain how you were able to answer that question as a result of your nonlinear experience. How are those new answers going to help you do your old job in a better way? Answering and pursuing a question expresses a directionality to your career trajectory that people respect, envy, and see as a marker of success, regardless of now nonlinear it may be.

IMAGINE YOURSELF IN THE FUTURE LOOKING BACK

The learning story grounds your career in a continual pursuit instead of a series of endpoints that can be compared to each other. Imagine yourself in the future looking back on your experience—what has changed? What have you learned? People spend tens of thousands of dollars on formal educational opportunities and thus understand the value of being paid to learn will be easy to understand. Regrounding your story in terms of learning gives you more power when coming back to renegotiate in your old industry in the same way a person who gets a graduate degree returns to a promotion.

EMBRACE BEING THE OTHER

It takes a certain level of mastery in both fields to confidently embrace being the Other. If your nonlinear stint was too short, don’t fake it; instead, concentrate on telling the other types of stories above. As the Other in the room, you have the opportunity to either be a translator or a synthesizer of ideas.

A translator is responsible for sharing perspectives and views that are a given in one world in a way that is accessible to another, while a synthesizer’s primary goal is to combine perspectives in fresh ways informed by different bodies of knowledge. Being aware of which way of thinking is needed will help you find a unique voice you can confidently own.

Dev Aujla is the creator of 50waystogetajob.com and author of the upcoming book 50 Ways to Get a Job: An Unconventional Guide to Finding Work on Your Terms due out in April. He is the director of talent for Juxtapose, an early-stage venture fund based in New York City.

FastCompany.com | January 4, 2018 | Dev Aujla

Your #Career : Exactly How To Decide Which Skills To Put On Your #Resume …Don’t just List every Software Program you’ve Ever worked With. Take these Four Steps instead.

January 4, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

You know what your goal is when you’re writing your resume: You’ve got to capture recruiters’ and hiring managers’ interest in a way that separates you from everyone else in the stack.

But while you’re hopefully savvy enough to avoid listing “Microsoft Office” in your skills section, you may be missing your chance to show off what you’re really skilled at–by bragging about skills that aren’t as valuable as you might think. Here’s why, and how to fix it.

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Our national obsession with STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math) skews job seekers’ thinking about what counts as a resume-worthy skill. Even for semi-technical and non-technical roles, many proudly tout the programming languages they know, their experience with design programs, and their work with particular databases. They hope the accretion of these skills makes them seem like modern “digital natives” (a term often burdened with ageist assumptions) worthy of landing an interview.

It’s no doubt that technical skills are crucial for jobs across many industries. Indeed, some reckon that even tech candidates tend to lack the hard skills employers require; if your coding job requires a lot of Java-based programming, you’d better know your Java. But a lot of what separates the good employees from the great is not their technical expertise–it’s their ability to work together with their colleagues. People skills, also known as “soft skills,” matter a lot. So one of your main goals in writing your resume should be to show off how great your people skills are.

Consider the familiar rap against liberal arts majors. How many college students majoring in history, philosophy, or literature get harangued at family gatherings by well-meaning relatives who think they’re pursuing a worthless degree? Because who needs a historian, philosopher, or literary critic at a business meeting? Actually, lots of companies do.

I run a program at the University of Texas called the Human Dimensions of Organizations. At the undergraduate level, we work with students to understand the soft skills underlying courses in the liberal arts. A class about the history of the Camp David Accords also teaches strategies for mediating disputes. A course exploring the philosophy of belief also teaches about the ways people’s knowledge can be affected by arguments. A semester exploring 19th-century English literature creates opportunities for empathy and for recognizing the roots of modern industrial practice.

The point here isn’t to argue for the value of a humanities education. It’s that every job seeker needs human-based skills to land a job offer. People’s collected workplace (and classroom) experience leads them to develop skills beyond the technical abilities mentioned in a job listing’s “requirements” section. Which means your resume needs to demonstrate that you’ve done exactly that.

SO WHAT ARE MY SKILLS, EXACTLY?

Figuring out which of those skills you should highlight comes down to these four steps:

Identify one or two of the biggest projects you’ve worked on since taking your current job.
Reflect on the biggest challenges to success in those projects.
Ask yourself what you had to do (get specific–which specific steps did you have to take?) to overcome those obstacles. Those skills are the ones that you need to highlight on your resume. Some of them may be interpersonal, and others might be more technical, but chances are, none of them are “Excel.”
Find the clearest, most concise way to describe those skills in terms that show off your abilities with regard to what the job listing calls for.

For instance: Did the team disagree about how to pursue a project? Did you play a role in helping your coworkers arrive at a common vision? If so, you’ve developed skills in mediating disputes and building a collaborative environment. Or did you have to take a poorly defined problem and turn it into a series of discrete challenges that you could tackle with individual projects? If so, you’ve honed your skills in project design and implementation, not to mention your team communication skills.

One benefit to going through this process is that it helps you understand your skills in practice. They won’t be these diffuse, abstract things you’ll struggle to talk about on job interviews. Instead, you’ll be able to discuss exactly what role you took in the project that inspired that line on your resume–and why, thanks to your amazing skill set, you’ll be able to meet similar challenges on your new team.

A final word of warning, though: Don’t oversell your abilities. If you’re generally not that good at resolving disputes, don’t put yourself in a position where you may be forced to do that on a regular basis. Yes, highlighting your soft skills is key to actually getting noticed. But you (and the people you work with) won’t be happy in a position that doesn’t match what you’re actually best at.

FastCompany.com | January 4, 2018 | BY ART MARKMAN 4 MINUTE READ