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Your #Career : 9 Reasons To Love #LinkedIn … Study conducted by ROI Research, 59 percent of Respondents said LinkedIn is Their Most Important Account on Social Networks.

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It is one of any career-minded professional’s most important personal branding tools because it is replete with features that not only help you stand out and get noticed, they help you do your job better.

Linkedin Coffee

Here’s why:

1. It’s big! In fact, it is the largest professional network with over 400 million members (and growing). That means it gives you access – and makes you visible – to people from all around the world who can help you be successful.

2. It shows up first. When someone googles you, your LinkedIn profile is likely to show up at the top of the search results – making it a key tool for influencing those who want to get to know you. Since almost two thirds of all clicks go to the top three results, LinkedIn is the place where people will learn about you.

3. It helps you stay in touch. In a world where it is getting harder and harder to maintain contacts, LinkedIn provides the best way to keep in touch. When your former colleagues change companies, you don’t need to worry about finding their new email address. You can maintain all those professional relationships by being connected on LinkedIn.

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4. It provides Google juice. The links you provide from LinkedIn, leading people to your website and other sites that are important to you (LinkedIn allows you to include three outbound links in your profile), make the sites more valuable to Google. This makes them even more visible to people who are searching for what you have to offer; traffic generates more traffic when it comes to search-result rankings. Links to your website have more value with an inbound link from LinkedIn – just make sure you have your profile visible to everyone. Here’s how to do that.

5. It’s comprehensive. It’s your one-stop shop for managing all your contacts. You can organize your contacts using tags so you can communicate with subsets of them at a time. And they don’t even need to be LinkedIn connections. You can upload your Gmail contacts and iphone contacts too – keeping your entire professional network in one place.

6. It lets others speak for you. Personal branding is not all about you telling the world how great you are. It helps to get others help you tout your accomplishments. There are two ways LinkedIn lets you validate what you say about yourself –endorsements and recommendations. These features make you more credible to those who are checking you out. Just be sure to get endorsements for key skills and have recommendations from respected leaders in your industry.

7. It’s always available. The new version of the LinkedIn app gives you access to everything you need when you are on the move and gives you an opportunity to use those minutes (while waiting for the plane to take off or standing in line at Whole Foods) to reach out to connections – keeping those relationships in shape.

8. It’s exclusively focused on business. There are lots of social networks where you can post a picture of your family outing or your dog doing stupid tricks, but LinkedIn is truly the most powerful professional network for people who are serious about their career.

9. It helps you keep the saw sharp. LinkedIn Pulse provides access to luminaries and their latest thinking. Participating in groups and being engaged in conversations with your connections helps you learn and grow, benchmark processes, and innovate. You can also find mentors, source staff, and find people to coach and mentor outside your company – even outside your industry.

William Arruda is a partner in CareerBlast, a video platform and virtual coach that helps you get promoted faster.

Forbes.com | August 14, 2016 | William Arruda

#Leadership : Conquering The 3 Most Common Types Of Company Crisis…As one Entrepreneur explains, “Crisis Management” Isn’t a Monolithic Process or a Skill that Suits every Situation.

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Sooner or later, no matter their size, location, or industry, all companies face some sort of crisis. The trouble, though, is that we often talk about “crisis management” like it’s a single skill or process: You have it or you don’t; you do it right or you totally mess it up.

Free- Bubble on the Bubble

But that isn’t the case at all, and the effects of this misunderstanding aren’t hard to see. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Emory University reviewed the data and found (unsurprisingly) that mismanaged crises often resulted from unprepared leadership teams and led to a wide range of long-term consequences, whereas companies that handled crisis effectively managed to recover fully and quickly.

Here’s a basic yet underappreciated taxonomy of business crises and a look at what it takes to weather them.

THREE TYPES OF CRISIS

1. Personnel crisis. This is when there’s serious individual misconduct and unethical or illegal activities by key players. The sexual harassment scandal that’s rocking Fox News right now, centered around founder and CEO Roger Ailes, is a flagrant example of this type of crisis. It not only reflects Ailes’s alleged personal conduct but the culture of the organization he led.

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is under investigation for alleged market manipulation related to his involvement in the company’s emissions scandal, which began to unfold in 2014, alongside other VW board members. The company has already admitted to secretly installing software in some 11 million vehicles in order to pass emissions tests, a violation that investigators now appear to suspect may have been mismanaged (or even started) among top leaders.

 

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2. Systemic crises. Chipotle is still fighting its way back from a string of customer food poisoning incidents in late 2015. The company is finally back to in the black but still struggling to right itself. Chipotle’s failures were a matter of systemic operational crises up and down the organization—from its supply chain and quality control to customer interactions.

3. Contextual crises. Brexit, mass shootings, terrorism: From local incidents all the way on up through geopolitical upheavals, businesses can wake up one morning and suddenly have to navigate a variety of crises they couldn’t have seen coming. This type of crisis originates externally but dramatically changes the context in which a company operates. It creates psychological turmoil and unsteadies employees and customers alike.

Professor Peter Senge of MIT’s Sloan School of Management once wrote:

Leadership exists when people are no longer victims of circumstances but participate in creating new circumstances . . . Leadership is about creating a domain in which human beings continually deepen their understanding of reality and become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world. Ultimately, leadership is about creating new realities.

That’s a high bar to clear—especially during a crisis. But if leaders grasp that their job is already about creating new circumstances, then sudden changes of fortune (even for the worse) may not actually seem so anomalous or frightening after all. You can’t set an action plan for every possible contingency, but you don’t have to. Here are two steps for navigating a crisis whose specifics you can never anticipate.

1. START WITH YOURSELF, THEN WORK OUTWARD

Managing crisis means accepting incredible levels of uncertainty with a calm, cool, and positive attitude. That’s never easy. But the sense of urgency to tackle tough situations always requires an even temper.

In order to communicate a decisive yet flexible plan as soon as crisis hits, you’ll need to assess the situation effectively:

  1. Ask yourself: What does this situation demand? Is it a personnel crisis, a systemic crisis, or a contextual one?
  2. Then craft an immediate-term response strategy based on how you want to emerge from this crisis at the end—even if you don’t know exactly how you’ll get there—and communicate it to your team, partners, and customers.
  3. Finally, as you begin rolling out that strategy, keep an eye on ability (your own and your organization’s) to execute it based on how the crisis evolves (and it will!)—without losing sight of your company’s assets, structure, and capabilities.

Sound like a lot to handle? To be fair, it is. In 2014, Mary Barra became General Motors’s (GM) first female CEO. After only two months in the role, GM had to recall 1.7 million cars with an ignition switch defect that was responsible for more than a dozen deaths—a clear-cut systemic crisis, with possible reverberations at the personnel level.

Barra snapped into action. She personally went on a media tour and apologized for GM’s grave mistake. As the New York Times reported, “It was a moment unlike any other at General Motors: The top executive stepping—personally and publicly—into the middle of one of the gravest safety problems in the company’s history. Her performance was a marked departure from the norm in the auto industry, where corporate chiefs routinely avoid talking about recalls unless subpoenaed by Congress.”

After assessing the situation, Barra took personal responsibility for dealing with GM’s crisis head on, preventing a systemic crisis from spiraling into an irrecoverable PR disaster and a failure of leadership to boot.

2. INFLUENCE OTHERS, THEN LET THEM INFLUENCE YOU

Successful leaders inspire and influence everyone in good times and bad—their executive team, employees, customers, clients, partners, investors, and many others. That’s also part of the job description. Even if some decisions involve the most basic of gut instincts, leaders navigating crises need to tell their teams precisely what they want, when, and why—then help them make it happen. Waiting too long to weigh countervailing opinions can spell doom.

Here’s what David Roberts, chairman of Nationwide Building Society, said immediately after the Brexit vote:

Britain has always been at its best at times of high uncertainty and volatility. There are important decisions coming, but for the next few days, weeks, and months, we all have a responsibility to work through the issues in a calm, thoughtful, and positive manner. Despite the naysayers, the economy will continue to function effectively; customers will still need to save, borrow, and invest, and we will all continue to be there for them as we were yesterday and in the weeks past.

Roberts didn’t resort to abstraction even while working to calm fears; he concisely describes what the U.K. economy’s goals must be and which consumers’ needs remain unchanged. It’s inspiring talk amid a contextual crisis, but it’s also marching orders of a sort—here’s what we all need to do next—reflecting Senge’s goal of helping people “become more capable of participating in the unfolding of the world.”

Communicating effectively in times of uncertainty means not just articulating your point of view, but listening actively—without bias or judgment and with a real willingness to consider different perspectives. Roberts acknowledges this, too, when he notes a shared responsibility for navigating the issues collaboratively.

That means paying heed not just to the content of others’ ideas, but to their emotional tone, too. Both are crucial for mutual understanding—and, ultimately, everyone getting back on their feet.

Serial entrepreneur Faisal Hoque is the founder of Shadoka, which enables entrepreneurship, growth, and social impact. He is the author of Everything Connects: How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation, and Sustainability (McGraw-Hill) and other books. Use the Everything Connects leadership app for free.

 

FAISAL HOQUE 08.12.16 5:00 AM

FastCompany.com

 

#Leadership : 3 Ways to Know If an Employee Is a Culture Fit…Many Factors Go into Making the Right Hire. Here’s How to Make Sure your Candidate is Right for your Company’s Culture.

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A good resume can blow you away. Impressive universities and company histories may be exactly what you are looking for. A job applicant might say all the right thingsin the interview, at which they’re wearing a perfectly pressed suit and spit-shined shoes. This is the new hire, right?

Free- Men in Socks

Except, at your company, t-shirts and jeans aren’t just for casual Fridays. Where you went to school isn’t as important as the passions you pursue on a daily basis. Every project is a cross-discipline team effort, and everybody shares credit. That’s your company culture, and it’s made your business successful. So no, that candidate, as impressive as they are, is not your new hire.

The “best fit” candidate is in the eyes of the beholder, which means you can define your ideal applicant however you want to make sure you make the best decision for your job requirement and your culture.

When it comes to fitting in with your organization, the best candidates share these three attributes:

1. They understand your culture and core values going in

A candidate should never be in the dark about your company’s core values, work style, its approach to teamwork or its methods of problem solving. That’s on you as an organization to have figured out and streamlined.

In fact, you probably shouldn’t be hiring unless you could paint a picture of your ideal candidate and exactly how they would fill a particular need. Make sure you know why you’re hiring in the first place, and not just to fill a vacant desk as soon as possible.

When you put out the call for applicants, be as specific as possible about what a prospective employee can expect should they be hired. If you’re a dog-friendly office with flexible telecommuting opportunities, say that. If working weekends is common, say that too. Never hide the truth from anyone – if you like your culture how it is, don’t run the risk of bringing in someone who will stir the pot because their expectations differed from reality.

If you’re struggling to envision your ideal candidate, take bits and pieces from current or past staffers and build a collage of sorts. What are the qualities you admire in real people you already interact with every day? Think back to when those people were hired – what did they do to signal to you that they were a good fit? Write out a list of what you’re looking for and find the candidate who most closely matches it.

 

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2. They have a passion for your industry, not simply employment in general

You don’t want to hire a candidate who’s only looking for a stepping stone to add to his or her resume. No matter how specific you write the job requirements in your posting, applicants who are wrong for the job (and know they’re wrong for it) will still apply regardless.

Be leery of candidates who move around laterally, taking similarly-titled jobs in a variety of industries. They may be great at certain skills like managing small teams, but if you value cultural fits and passion, you want employees who have stuck around and moved vertically within your industry.

Enthusiasm can be faked in an interview, but real passion can’t (unless you’re interviewing an Oscar-worthy actor, in which case they’re in the wrong field anyway). When you sit candidates down, ask them to tell you real stories from their work history – challenging situations, moments they felt the happiest – and see how their body language changes as they recount those times. You’ll learn a lot about their thought processes and how their passions go beyond the job at hand and apply to the industry as a whole.

3. They work well with others

If your company requires applicants to submit references along with a resume, are you actually going forward and contacting those references? How well an employee fits in with others at your company is a huge indicator of job success – in fact, it’sabout 50 percent responsible for an employee’s success within the first 18 months.

The laws of attraction apply to hiring as much as they do to relationships. Chemistry is hard to measure and harder to describe, but the concept of love at first sight applies to the application process. Depending on how good the initial spark with a candidate is, you might make up your mind to extend a job offer on the walk between the lobby and the interview room. That’s not always the wisest idea, but it speaks to the power of interpersonal connectedness when building a company culture.

One way to ensure that you aren’t blinded by a great first impression is to involve more members of the team in the interview process. Don’t just pick employees whom the candidate will report to; bring in those who will report to the candidate as well. Observe the interaction as your current employees essentially interview their potential future boss, then debrief with them afterwards to find out if they feel comfortable working under this person.

The best person for the job might not be the one with the shiniest resume, or the longest track record of success. The ideal candidate is the one you feel that intangible connection with, someone who combines acumen for the position with passion and cultural alignment in equal measure.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
PUBLISHED ON: AUG 12, 2016
BY JEFF PRUITT

Chairman and CEO, Tallwave

#Leadership : 10 Change-Management Strategies That Are Backed By Science… If Science helps Explain our Negative Reaction to Change, It also Offers Insights for Helping People Deal with Change.

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I’ve been speaking on change leadership for over 25 years, but only recently have researchers been able to use technology like functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) to look at the brain and see what actually happens when we’re facing a major organizational change.

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For example: Most of our daily activities including many of our work habits are controlled by a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. These habitual repetitive tasks take much less mental energy to perform because they become hard wired and we no longer have to give them much conscious thought. So it’s no wonder that the way we’ve always done it not only feels right, it feels good.

Change jerks us out of this comfort zone by stimulating the prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain responsible for insight and impulse control. But the prefrontal cortex is also directly linked to the amygdala and that’s the brain’s fear circuitry, which in turn controls our freeze, fight or flight response. And when the prefrontal cortex is overwhelmed with complex and unfamiliar concepts, the amygdala connection gets knocked into high gear. The result is all those negative feelings of anxiety, fear, depression, sadness, fatigue or anger that change leaders observe in their teams (and often in themselves).

But if science helps explain our negative reaction to change, it also offers insights for helping people deal with change:

1. First of all, make the change familiar. If you show people two pictures of themselves, one an accurate representation and the other a reverse image, people will prefer the second because that’s the image they see in the mirror everyday. It takes a lot of repetition to move a new or complex concept from the prefrontal cortex to the basal ganglia. Continually talking about change, focusing on key aspects will eventually allow the novel to become more familiar and less threatening.

 

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2. Let people create change. No one likes change that’s forced on them; and yet, most people respond favorably to change they create and brain research shows why this is so. At the moment when someone chooses to change, their brain scan shows a tremendous amount of activity as insight develops, and the brain begins building new and complex connections. When people solve a problem by themselves, the brain releases a rush of neurotransmitters like adrenaline and this natural high becomes associated positively with the change experience.

3. Simplify your communication. The prefrontal cortex can only deal well with a few concepts at a time. As tempting as it may be to lump everything you know about the change into one comprehensive chunk, don’t do it. Your job is to help people make sense of complexity by condensing it into two or three critical goals that they can understand and absorb.

4. Don’t sugarcoat the truth. The prefrontal cortex is always on guard for signals of danger. When overly optimistic outcomes or unrealistic expectations are exposed (and by the way, they always are) the prefrontal cortex switches to high alert looking for other signs of deception and triggering the primitive brain to respond with feelings of heightened anxiety.

5. Help people pay attention. The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain. In fact, attention is what is continually reshaping brain patterns. The term attention density refers to the amount of attention paid to a particular mental experience over a specific time. The greater concentration on a specific idea, the higher the attention density. High attention density facilitates long-term behavioral change. Now, one way to encourage people to pay attention is to package new ideas in continually different ways, attention grabbing ways. A story, a game, an experience, a humorous skit, a metaphor, an image or even a song.

6. Don’t underestimate the power of emotion. According to the neurologist and author Antonio Damasio, the center of our conscious thought (the prefrontal cortex) is so tightly connected to the emotion-generating amygdala, that no one makes decisions based on pure logic. Damasio’s research makes it clear that mental processes we’re not conscious of drive our decision making, and logical reasoning is really no more than a way to justify emotional choices. When leaders announce change, therefore, they need to go beyond logic and facts and include an appeal to the audience’s emotions.

7. In addition, remember that emotions are infectious. Like the common cold, emotions are literally contagious. You can “catch” an emotion just by being in the same room with someone. And since emotional leads tend to flow from the most powerful person in a group to the others, when the leader is angry or depressed, negativity can spread like a virus to the rest of the team, affecting attitudes and lowering energy. Conversely, upbeat and optimistic leaders are likely to make the entire team feel energized.

8. Watch your body language. When your body language doesn’t match your words, your verbal message is lost. Neuroscientists atColgate University study the effects of gestures by using an electroencephalograph (EEG) machines to measure “event related potentials” – brain waves that form peaks and valleys. One of these valleys, dubbed N400, occurs when subjects are shown gestures that contradict what’s spoken. This is the same brain wave dip that occurs when people listen to nonsensical language. So if you state that you are open to suggestions about implementing change, but as you talk about “openness,” you cross your arms in a “closed” gesture — you literally don’t make sense. And if forced to choose, people will believe what they see and not what you say.

9. Give people a stabilizing foundation. In a constantly changing organization, where instability must be embraced as inevitable, a sense of stability can still be maintained. The leader’s role here is to create stability through honoring the organization’s history, detailing current successes and challenges, and creating a powerful vision for the future. And, by using the term “vision,” I’m not referring to a corporate statement punctuated by bullet points. I’m talking about a clearly articulated, emotionally charged, and encompassing picture of what the organization is trying to achieve.

10. Optimize the power of inclusive relationships. Using (fMRI) equipment, researchers found that when someone feels excluded there is corresponding activity in the dorsal portion of the anterior cingulate cortex — the neural region involved in the “suffering” component of pain. In other words, the feeling of being excluded provokes the same sort of reaction in the brain that physical pain might cause. The new change-leadership fundamentals emphasize inclusive and collaborative relationships. Social networks – those ties among individuals that are based on mutual trust, shared work experiences, and personal connections are the  foundation for organizational success. Anything you as a leader can do to nurture these mutually rewarding relationships will also enhance the change readiness within your team and throughout your organization.

Carol Kinsey Goman is an international keynote speaker, leadership presence coach, and author of The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt How You Lead.

Forbes.com | August 12, 2016 | Carol Kinsey Goman

#Leadership : 7 Things Deeply Intuitive People Do Differently…Steve Jobs Once Said that Intuition is More Powerful than Intellect.

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As it turns out, Jobs was onto something, and the scientific community backs him up. It seems that we’ve been giving intuition far too little respect.

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“Intuition will tell the thinking mind where to look next.” — Jonas Salk

In a Salk Institute study, participants were asked to play a card game where they pulled cards from two different decks. The decks were rigged so that one would “win” more often than the other, but the participants didn’t know that — at least, not overtly. It took about 50 cards for participants to consciously realize that the decks were different and about 80 to figure out what that difference was. However, what was really interesting was that it only took about 10 cards for their palms to start sweating slightly every time they reached for a card from the “losing” deck. It was about that same time that they started subconsciously favoring the “winning” deck.

Related: 8 Habits of Incredibly Interesting People

While that’s all very interesting in a clinical setting, you have to ask yourself if it holds true in real life. Apparently, it does. When it comes to making major decisions, your intuition can matter just as much as your intellect.

The science is clear: intuition is a powerful force of the mind that can help us to make better decisions. Fortunately, intuition is a skill that you can hone by practicing the habits of highly intuitive people.

In one study, car buyers who relied on careful analysis of all of the available information were happy with their purchases about 25% of the time, while buyers who made quicker, more intuitive purchases were happy with their purchases about 60% of the time.

Intuition comes from the primitive brain; it’s an artifact of the early days of man when the brain’s ability to detect hidden dangers ensured our survival. These days, we use this capability so little that we don’t know how to listen to it properly.

Whether you listen to it or not, your intuition is healthy and functioning. If you want to make better decisions in life, you’d do well to brush up on your intuition skills. You can start by emulating some of the habits of highly intuitive people.

1. They slow down enough to hear their inner voice. Before you can pay attention to your intuition, you first have to be able to hear it amid the cacophony of your busy life. You have to slow down and listen, which often requires solitude. Taking some time away from the everyday, even something as brief as going for a walk, is a great way to turn up the volume of your intuition.

 

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2. They follow their inner voice. One of the primary reasons that some people are more intuitive than others is that they actually listen to their gut feeling instead of dismissing or doubting it. And that doesn’t mean that they ignore their analytical mind and their critical thinking skills; there’s a difference between using reason as a system of checks and balances and using it to talk yourself out of what your intuition knows to be true.

Related: 9 Signs You’re Successful — Even If It Doesn’t Feel Like It

3. They practice empathic accuracy. I’d probably lose you if I said that highly intuitive people read minds, so I’ll use the scientific term: empathic accuracy. It’s not magic; it’s an intuitive awareness of what other people are thinking and feeling, using cues such as body language and tone of voice. It’s an extremely powerful form of empathy that helps foster deep connections with other people.

4. They practice mindfulness. “Mindfulness” sounds even more New-Agey than trusting your intuition, but it’s really just a fancy term for focusing on being in the moment. Mindfulness is a great technique to filter out all of the distractions in your environment — and your brain. When you do that, you can hear your intuition loud and clear.

5. They nurture their creativity. Did you ever have one of those paint-by-number kits when you were a kid? Talk about turning art into a science — all you have to do is put the right color in the right little space. You may end up with a pretty painting, but the only intuition involved is guessing what colors you’re supposed to use in those really tiny spaces. No paint-by-numbers kit in the world can make a skilled artist create something as novel and monumental as the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa. The missing ingredient is intuition. And, just as intuition is the secret ingredient in creativity, being intentionally creative strengthens your use of intuition.

6. They trust their gut. Have you ever made a decision and immediately started to feel sick, maybe even kind of clammy? Well, that affective experience is the body’s way of informing you that the decision your analytic mind came to is at odds with your instinct.

7. They analyze their dreams. If you accept the science that demonstrates the power of intuition, it’s not much of a leap to accept that our dreams are often manifestations of intuition. Sure, sometimes dreams are nonsense, but they often try to tell us something. Intuitive people don’t just think, “Wow, that was a weird dream!”; they ask themselves, “Where did that come from, and what can I take away from it?”

Related: 7 Amazing Things That Happen When You Spend Time Alone

Bringing It All Together

The science is clear: intuition is a powerful force of the mind that can help us to make better decisions. Fortunately, intuition is a skill that you can hone by practicing the habits of highly intuitive people.

 

Entrepreneur.com | August 12, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

 

Your #Career : 6 Very Clear Signs That Your Job Is Due To Be Automated…And what about you? Are you Sufficiently Aware of the Signs that you Should? To Help you Get the Head Start you May Need, here are the Signs that it’s Time to Fly the Nest.

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 In H. G. Wells’s classic The War of the Worlds, the narrator pauses a moment to rue the fact that he didn’t react sooner to the arrival of an “intelligence greater than man’s”—in his case, Martians landing on earth. Comparing himself to a comfortable dodo in its nest, he imagined those ill-fated birds also dithering as hungry sailors invaded their island: “We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear.”

And what about you? As intelligent technologies take over more and more of the decision-making territory once occupied by humans, are you taking any action? Are you sufficiently aware of the signs that you should? To help you get the head start you may need, here are the signs that it’s time to fly the nest. All of them are evidence that a knowledge worker’s job is on the path to automation.

1. IT INVOLVES LITTLE PHYSICAL CONTACT OR MANIPULATION OF THINGS

If you don’t have to touch your work or see your customer face-to-face in order to perform your job, there’s less reason not to automate it. If you deal primarily in documents (as real estate and many other types of attorneys do, for example) or images (like radiologists), systems can digest that content and determine its meaning. If your job requires you to wrestle with something physical in unpredictable ways, it’s not going away very soon. An anesthesiologist friend, for example, says he often has to move patients around a lot to clear airways, so he doubts robots will put him out of work.

 

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2. IT INVOLVES ANSWERING DATA-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS

We already know that analytics and algorithms are better at creating insights from data than most humans. They have already replaced some insurance policy underwriters and financial planners. They’ll probably replace more, since this human/machine performance gap will only increase.

For example, a company called Kensho Technologies has created an intelligent software system called Warren, which can already answer questions like, “What happens to the share prices of energy companies when oil trades above $100 a barrel and political unrest has recently occurred in the Middle East?” The company stated that by the end of 2014, its software would be able to answer 100 million different distinct financial questions involving complex data.

3. IT INVOLVES QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

One might think that quantitative analysts would be immune from job loss in the “Age of Analytics,” but there are technologies that place their jobs at risk, too. Many quantitative analysts’ jobs will be replaced—or at the least heavily augmented—by machine-learning systems. Machine learning is probably best used to augment human analysts and improve their productivity in analysis and model development.

But in some settings, such as online advertising, it’s virtually impossible not to employ machine-learning approaches to generate models at the necessary pace. The number of models needed to target a particular consumer and a particular advertising opportunity easily ranges into the thousands per week, and the likelihood of a successful conversion (say, the customer buying the advertised product within a week) is about one in a thousand at best—meaning it’s not worth human attention. Models generated through machine learning are the only possibility in this industry and a growing number of other ones.

Of course, it takes an expert quantitative analyst to design the machine-learning approach, but one such analyst can ultimately generate millions of models over time. If you’re a quantitative analyst who understands machine learning, you may well keep your job. If you don’t understand it, you’ll probably be replaced by it.

4. CONSISTENT PERFORMANCE IS CRITICAL TO YOUR ROLE

Computers are unfailingly consistent; that’s why they already determine who gets credit in financial services, for example. Where consistency matters in other job domains—insurance claims adjusting, financial stress testing, perhaps even judging crimes and issuing punishments—computers will increasingly take on the task. In insurance claims, for example, “auto-adjudication” can automatically evaluate and approve up to 75% of claims. Human claims adjusters are left to approve only the most challenging ones.

5. IT INVOLVES THE CREATION OF DATA-BASED NARRATIVES

Jobs involving the narrative description of data and analysis were once the province of humans, but automated systems are already beginning to take them over. In journalism, companies like Automated Insights and Narrative Science are already creating data-intensive content. Sports and financial reporting are already at some risk, although the automation of these domains is on the margins thus far—high school and fantasy sports, and earnings reports for small companies.

Other companies, like AnalytixInsight, create investment analysis narratives on more than 40,000 public companies with its CapitalCube service. The job at risk in this case is that of investment analyst. Wealth management in financial services, which already relies on computer systems in many cases to determine the ideal portfolio for a particular type of investor, is also at risk. Wealth managers and brokers today often take automated recommendations and translate them into narratives for their customers. As customers grow more sophisticated and computer-literate, the translation function will be less necessary.

6. THERE ARE WELL-DEFINED RULES FOR PERFORMING THE WOR

The easiest domains to automate have always been those with clear, consistent rules. Now rule-based systems can handle increasingly complex problems. If we were training for a career in financial auditing, for example, we’d be concerned. There are already some systems that automate key aspects of auditing. In tax preparation—a job that is entirely based on following complex rules—much of the work has already been taken over by systems like TurboTax and TaxCut for consumers and small businesses, and Lacerte, ProSystem, and UltraTax for corporate returns.

Think of these as the attributes of “dodo jobs”—those that are sitting there just waiting to be gobbled up by technology. It may be that we’ll be left with fewer of them and not none; the most experienced knowledge workers in careers affected by these technologies may keep their jobs, while no new positions open up for entry-level workers. But for your own well-being, or your children’s or grandchildren’s, we’d advise you to run from them while you can.

This article is excerpted from Only Humans Need Apply: Winners and Losers in the Age of Smart Machines by Thomas H. Davenport and Julia Kirby, published by Harper Business, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. It is reprinted with permission.

THOMAS H. DAVENPORT AND JULIA KIRBY 08.11.16 5:00 AM
FastCompany.com

Your #Career : 6 Reasons This is the Perfect Thank-You Letter to Send After a Job Interview….Your Follow-Up Email (yes, experts say most hiring managers prefer email over hand-written notes) Needs to Stand Out From the Crowd.

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You spent weeks polishing your résumé, days writing your cover letter, and countless hours preparing for the job interview. You ace it — and you walk out feeling confident and relieved, like your work is finally done…..But it’s not.

happy-woman-computer-smile

You can’t just go home, sit back, and wait. You need to take one last crucial step: send the follow-up note.

“The best timeframe to send a thank you email is within 24 hours after your interview,” says Whitney Purcell, associate director of Career Development at Susquehanna University. “It should be sent during business hours – no 3 a.m. emails that make your schedule seem a little out of whack with the company’s traditional hours.”

And note: A simple “Thanks for your time!” won’t do, she says.

Your follow-up email (yes, experts say most hiring managers prefer email over hand-written notes) needs to stand out from the crowd. It should highlight the best parts of the conversation you had with the interviewer, and a final reminder as to why you’d be perfect for the job.

 

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Dr. Deborah Good, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Katz School of Business, says the following is an ideal follow-up letter because it possesses six important traits:

Follow-up thank you note email graphic

Businessinsider.com | August 10, 2016 | Skye Gould and Jacquelyn Smith

Your #Career : 6 Things you Might Not Realize are Sabotaging your Career, and How to Avoid Them…Want to Get Ahead at Work? Heed this Advice on What to Avoid in the Workplace to Maximize your Professional Potential.

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Just because you’re doing a lot of work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing your best work.

business woman with her staff, people group in background at modern bright office indoors

Mistaking volume for effectiveness

Just because you’re doing a lot of work doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing your best work. If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your workload — or you feel like you’re not putting out quality material because you have too much on your plate — tap into a professional organization platform to help sort things out.

“The most effective communication is focused, consistent, trustworthy and accessible,”says Gretchen Pisano, co-founder and CEO of pLink Coaching Center. “Internal communication platforms, like Slack, transform office communication, eliminate email from the process and dramatically reduce unproductive status meetings that are designed to keep everyone in the loop.”

Clustering in cliques

Joining a clique at work can provide a sense of belonging and security. However, workplace cliques can be career killers when you become branded for your peers and not for yourself. This is particularly dangerous for your career when your clique has fallen out of favor, or is not being targeted for positions of leadership.

“Instead, cross-pollinate and expand your work networks to be broader, rather than deeper,” advises Becki Saltzman, author of Living Curiously: how to Use Curiosity to Be Remarkable and Do Good Stuff. “Knowing more people and having more people know you will provide more opportunities to step into unforeseen leadership positions. This can also help you navigate group layoffs.”

Free- Biz Man on Cellphone

We live in a tech-driven world, and if you can’t keep up with the times, you’ll be replaced.

Failing to keep up with technology

There’s an entire generation of employees who are being phased out of their jobs because they’re behind the curve on technology. The harsh reality is that we live in a tech-driven world, and if you can’t keep up with the times, you’ll be replaced.

“If your workplace implements new systems and you do not embrace the new direction and soak up the training, you risk putting yourself out of a job,” warns Justine Miller, an HR consultant with The Stir Group, a business-consulting firm in Philadelphia. “People remain in the workplace for a lot longer now, so older employees need to be as enthusiastic about new technologies as their Millennial colleagues.”

 

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Failing to keep up with technology

There’s an entire generation of employees who are being phased out of their jobs because they’re behind the curve on technology. The harsh reality is that we live in a tech-driven world, and if you can’t keep up with the times, you’ll be replaced.

“If your workplace implements new systems and you do not embrace the new direction and soak up the training, you risk putting yourself out of a job,” warns Justine Miller, an HR consultant with The Stir Group, a business-consulting firm in Philadelphia. “People remain in the workplace for a lot longer now, so older employees need to be as enthusiastic about new technologies as their Millennial colleagues.”

Trying to be too interesting

When you’re new to an organization, or feel marginalized at work, making an effort to have your co-workers, customers, and superiors get to know you better seems like a good thing. However, the danger is in the perceived effort.

Trying too hard to be seen, heard, and interesting can backfire and make you appear self-centered and desperate. Instead, focus on being interested in others. By doing that, they’ll become more curious about you.

“Look for sincere and specific reasons to like people,” Saltzman suggests. “Ask curious questions like, ‘What would surprise people most about your job?’ and ‘If you could implement one new policy at work, what would it be?’ Or perhaps interview a co-worker about an unusual work-related project that you both find intriguing.”

Being a nobody in the boss’ eyes

Trying to be too interesting can hurt your career, but so can being a wallflower, especially if it means the boss never notices you. It’s important to stand out, but even more important to provide value to the company.

“One of the biggest killers people make in their careers in today’s layoff-prone world is not becoming truly indispensable,” says career expert Barry Maher. “Find a task that your boss hates to do and offer to take it over. If losing you means the boss will have to go back to doing something he hates, then he will fight for you as if you were the company’s most valuable employee.”

Maher also says another smart strategy is simply to write the boss a very short note at the end of each week that explains what you did during the week.”Not only will the boss be reminded of just how valuable you are, but many bosses will save those notes and use them to write your review from them.”

 It’s important to stand out and provide value to the company.

Letting your true colors come through a little too much

You shouldn’t act like a completely different person at work than you do in your personal life, but you also shouldn’t fly off the handle like a raving lunatic every time something goes wrong if that’s something you’re apt to do when nobody “important” is watching.

“Triggers and biases can activate our personal behavior bombs that might cause you to erupt when confronted by others’ selfish behavior, false accusations, a lack of recognition, or exclusion from decision-making,” Saltzman explains.

“So be aware of those triggers before they activate and destroy your career. Create a ‘trigger tool’ that will help you elevate curiosity ahead of criticism, judgment, fear, and complacency. Doing so will allow you to assess your triggers before reacting, thereby reducing their power over you.”

Read the original article on Len Penzo dot Com. Copyright 2016. Follow Len Penzo dot Com on Twitter.

Businessinsider.com | August 10, 2016 |  Mikey Rox, Len Penzo dot Com

Your #Career : 4 Warning Signs Of The Next Recession—And How To Tell If Your Job Is Safe…Recessions are Cyclical, and There are some Foreboding Signs to Watch. Now’s the Time to Hash Out How Much you’re Worth to your Employer.

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The U.S. economy may have added more jobs last month than experts had predicted, but while that’s something to cheer, it isn’t cause for getting too cozy. A recent J.P. Morgan economic model, based on a broader range of indicators, puts the chances of a recession occurring within the next 12 months at roughly one in three.

question mark signs painted on a asphalt road surface

Recessions, after all, are cyclical. So the question is less whether we’re in for another one than when. I’m not an economist, but my many years in the staffing industry have taught me that there are some warning signs. Here are four potential pressures to pay attention to.

1. AN AGING WORKFORCE COULD SLOW THE ECONOMY

A report published last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research(NBER) claims that, based on historical trends, a 10% increase in the number of Americans over 60 slows per capita GDP growth by around 5.5%. In the last 20 years, census data shows that the U.S.’s older population grew by 16.8%, putting us on track for slower growth over the next two decades. (Just last week the New York Times noted that slower economic growth seems to have become the new normal across the developed world.)

“This dramatic shift in the age structure of the U.S. population,” the NBER study’s authors write, “has the potential to negatively impact the performance of the economy as well as the sustainability of government entitlement programs, and could result in a decline in consumption for the population as a whole.”

 

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2. THE UNDEREMPLOYMENT RATE IS STILL AT 10%

It’s usually fluctuations in the unemployment rate that get the most press, but theunderemployment rate—which describes those working part-time but who want full-time work, plus people who’ve stopped searching but still want a job—remains at 10%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That suggests there’s a significant chunk of recent college grads and experienced professionals out there who are still finding it tough to land jobs that meet their skill levels.

3. THE TEMPORARY JOB MARKET IS LEVELING OFF

Temporary staffing companies are typically the first to see growth after a recession. So when hiring rates in that market start to slow down—or, as happened this June, when hires actually decline—it can be a sign of a downshift in the economy. The decrease in the use of temporary workers is usually related to cost-cutting measures, since these are more expendable workers than full-time employees for companies that need to tighten their belts.

4. AUTOMATION IS NO LONGER A DISTANT POSSIBILITY—IT’S HERE

Surely by now you’ve heard the premonitions about robots taking your job—and you may not know quite what to make of them. But according to a 2013 University of Oxford study, nearly half of current U.S. workers are at risk of being put out of work by automation within the next two decades. It’s true that forecasts like these can sound overblown or just too distant to do anything about. Yet nearer-term estimates suggest they’re worth thinking about now. Some experts say 5 million jobs are due to be automated within just the next five years. And it’s conceivable that rising layoffs across multiple roles and sectors, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, could contribute to a recession sooner than we may imagine.

THREE QUESTIONS TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER YOUR JOB’S AT RISK

So what can you do about it? It’s normal to feel anxious or even helpless in the face of economic forces you can’t personally control. But there are a few things you can do right now to weather the next downturn, whenever it arrives.

It starts by getting a handle on how competitive you might be in a job market that’s suddenly a lot tighter than it is today. To help you do that, ask yourself these three questions:

1. Does your job tie directly to how the company makes money?
In order to keep you on the payroll in hard times, your employer will need to validate that you either save or make the company enough money to justify your cost. If you can’t explain how your work impacts profitability, you could be deemed expendable.

So spend some time quantifying your accomplishments, and tie some facts and figures to what you do. The average employee usually costs a company 130% to 140% of their salary. So if you make $60,000 a year, the real cost to your employer is $78,000 to $84,000 year. It’s much easier for an HR rep to do that math—factoring in benefits and other expenses—than it is for the average employee to estimate their own value to their company. But you can still get a rough sense of it.

Keep track of the number of customers your work supports (directly or indirectly) and estimate how much revenue they generate for the company. What would happen if your job function went away? Would the ability to deliver to customers properly be severely impacted—by how much, and by which measures? Create a list identifying what functions would go unfulfilled, needs unserved, and deadlines missed in your absence, then work backward from there to estimate the potential impact on revenue. Even rough, back-of-the-envelope arithmetic like this can be useful to you.

2. Do you fall in a knowledge sweet spot for your skill or industry?
When companies go through a restructuring, their goal is to reduce the cost of the workforce while hanging onto the highest level of knowledge and skills that they can. This usually results in layoffs of the overpaid and the inexperienced.

Do your homework on open platforms like Glassdoor, PayScale, and Salary.com to find out where you fall in years of experience and pay grade for your role. If your salary is a lot higher than average, you could be eliminated in order to save money. If you’re paid a lot lower, it’s possible that your skills aren’t valued enough by your employer and your job could be outsourced or divvied up among temporary or freelance workers.

If you think you might be overpaid, now is the time to bring your expertise up to par. Identify your specialty, then invest in some coursework to help you become even more of a subject-matter or skill expert—just make sure your area of specialization is actually in demand. If you’re on the lower end of the pay scale, you should do the same thing. The rule is simple: The more you know and the more you can do, the more valuable you’ll be to an employer that needs to cut costs.

3. How strong are your relationships at work—with your managers as well as your peers?
Layoffs create a lot of uncertainty and feelings of guilt for those who survive the cuts. Employers will try to keep those employees they feel have a positive mind-set and those they’re most comfortable working with. The idea is that those who remain can rally together and keep their spirits up.

So your relationships across the organization matter. Reach out to managers and coworkers to see how you can help take tasks off their plates or make their jobs even a little easier. When you alleviate pain or solve a problem, you’re appreciated. Your ability to step up and help others feel better about their own jobs will be remembered when the business takes a hit and it’s time to review the headcount.

Today, every job is temporary, and a trait that could most determine your employability over the next decade is your ability to learn. If you aren’t growing and developing your skills according to market demands, the risks to your career may quietly pile up. That would be true even if you never had to worry about another recession ever again.

J.T. O’Donnell is the CEO of CAREEREALISM, a site for “job shoppers.” Her company hosts the new web video series, The Job Shop, which each month showcases the employer brands of companies to more than 1 million professionals seeking new opportunities. Follow her on Twitter at @jtodonnell.

J.T. O’DONNELL 08.09.16 5:00 AM |  FastCompany.com

 

#Leadership : Day In The Life; Simple Ways To Turn A Bad Day Around…The Mind is Like a Muscle: It Requires Careful Maintenance or It’ll eventually be Pushed Beyond its Limit Sending You into Burnout Territory.

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Being a millennial entrepreneur comes with it’s fair share of emotional ups and downs. Some days your energy is high. Your creativity is on fire.  Other days? You find yourself in a motivational slump, wondering where that inspiration and focus disappeared to.

Melody Wilding Forbes Contributor

Let’s talk about bad days, because we all have them.

Recently I had one of those frustrating “off days”. My mood was low, my brain was foggy, and my inner critic was seriously acting up. Maybe you can relate. We’ve all been there at one time or another.

In the interest of having more honest conversations about work-life balance, happiness, and what it’s really like to be part of the side-hustle generation, I want to share how I lift myself out of a rut and rebound from a bad day.

When I’m feeling overwhelmed or uninspired, I first shift something in my surroundings. There’s science behind this seemingly simplistic approach: it’s been shown that a change of environment stimulates creativity.

 

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Luckily in New York City there’s no shortage of quirky, wifi-enabled places to work like the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center–a spot my friend Jason Van Orden, a business strategy consultant, recently turned me on to.

The mind is like a muscle: it requires careful maintenance or it’ll eventually be pushed beyond its limit sending you into burnout territory. Focused thinking free from distractions and social media–what Georgetown University professor and author Cal Newport calls “deep work“– is essential on days where I’m feeling scattered. Working from a hidden haven like this secret garden in Central Park allows me to concentrate for an extended period of time.

When I step away from distractions and give myself space to think, my best work comes out.

A bad day tends to cast a cloud over everything and trigger negative feelings that make us see situations more pessimistically. When in the thick of a funk, I remind myself that while I may have bad moments, it’s not a bad life . A high point of my day was receiving this thoughtful card from my Mom. It was just what I needed to shift my attitude.

What also keeps me on track when a bad day threatens to take me off course is trusting the systems and structures I’ve put in place for the way I work. I’m a big fan of morning rituals and equally rely on evening routines, including zeroing my inbox and jotting down my number one priority to accomplish the next day. It ensures I hit the ground running tomorrow and helps me leave that funk far behind.

Now, I’d love to hear from you: What is your go-strategy for rebounding from a bad day at the office? What have you found effective for breaking out a motivational slump? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter at @MelodyWilding.

Melody J. Wilding helps ambitious women and female entrepreneurs master their inner psychology for success and happiness. Learn more about better career and life balance at melodywilding.com.Save

Forbes.com | August 10, 2016 | Melody Wilding Women Forbes