Even though it's not Friday ...

I got an email from a nice man called Randy in Perrigo's PR firm (remember Perrigo? They're the guys with the dancing scientists):

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Anyhoo, apparently they're still at it at Perrigo. I usually bin these emails after the first generic, badly-written paragraph ["Dear space space Rowan. I have readed your blog and think ..."], but Randy's writing style held my eye and I was glad I clicked through:

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Not your typical corporate video. I do hope that Perrigo's CEO is in there somewhere (maybe doing the card trick?) Also, they need a new strapline as the usual corporate-speak at the end detracted from the whole effort. Other than that – happy not Friday. Serious harumphing will resume as soon as possible.

PowerPoint turns 25

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Robert Gaskins wrote a proposal for PowerPoint (then called 'Presenter') and the product was released into the wild in 1984. Three years later, his company was acquired, kit and caboodle, by Microsoft because they reckoned that the market for "desktop presentation" had the same potential as the "desktop publishing" sector.

In the meantime, we have all been subjected to a gazillion bullet points and most audiences reflexively wince and brace themselves for the onslaught when they see a person fiddling with a laptop, a USB stick and a data projector.

Last week, I had the surreal experience of delivering a PowerPoint presentation to an audience at a business breakfast while simultaneously trying to make any sense at all to a national radio audience. Let me know if you thought it worked - you can click over to the piece on my presentation blog here.

Finding a job is a full-time job - Part 2

A good chat with Mr Tubridy on RTE Radio, talking about where to find a job to apply for – because recruitment advertisements seem to be elusive little beasts these days. You can find the entire programme here or just listen to the job-hunt piece (about 9 minutes) below:

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Low-key, passive, private job-hunting is not going to cut it any more folks. As Mr T. says, "Where hope once came seeking you out, you must now seek out hope." Waiting with bated breath for the perfect job to appear in your favourite newspaper, or on your favourite jobsite, is unlikely to bear fruit right now. You can't ignore these routes, but you really, really cannot rely upon them either. Remember the old Steven Wright quote?

"There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot."

He was so right. This is no way to job-hunt folks - because your CV is unlikely to stand out from the crowd in the same way as a lure/spinner/feather is unlikely to stand out for the one little fishie that's swimming past this rather scary crowd.  

Skip the queue! Get upstream of the crowd and drop a very shiny lure in front of a relaxed, unstressed fishie, because if someone else does and you don't, guess who's getting hired?

Related Posts:

Finding a job is a full-time job - Part 1

From 2008 - Research, Networking & Route of entry

Wisdom

Really liked this

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Education - 3Rs + ...

Fabulous

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Finding a job is a full-time job

I don't know who coined that old saw but nowadays, it is truer than ever. Two consistent worries that clients present us with:

• "It's a tight market and there are now jobs to apply to." 
• "How should I divide my time on the job-hunt to keep all the plates spinning?"

Here are some thoughts based on lectures and seminars we have been conducting in the past while. I hope you find them applicable for your situation.

Job-hunting in a tight market

View more presentations from Rowan Manahan.

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Related posts:

Routes into a tight market

Finding a job in the 'hidden jobs market'
Job-hunting in a recession

Downsizing – dealing survivor guilt

Interesting to see two very cruel thoughts on this both from the same source. The first is a comment on "the most inappropriate thing you ever said out loud" post on Scott Adams' blog:

We recently had a company meeting where it was announced that an employee had been let go. He had a really nice, new dual core machine, so I when the leader of the meeting asked, "Are there any questions?" I said, "Can I have his computer?" Apparently, this was in poor taste.

And then management's perspective on this, from the inimitable Mr Adams himself:

Childcare in the workplace - a follow-up

I suspect that provision of childcare facilities within workplaces is going to be a growth area for the next few years. Whether both partners want to have fulfilling careers or not, dual income families are going to be an economic necessity for the majority of families in perpetuity, so any employer who can offer the additional piece of mind of an onsite crèche is going to be more attractive in the market.

In recessionary times, the pendulum has swung firmly back to the employer’s side and they can call the shots during the selection process, but abusing that power is a fool’s game because job-hunters will smile insincerely, bow their heads and take whatever is on offer and start looking for a new job the second they arrive onsite with what they perceive to be an unreasonable or unaccommodating employer. You want the best people to come and work for you and, more to the point, to stay with you in these difficult times?

Look. After. Them!

I don't hear the, "We're really more like a big family here at Widgets Inc." line so often these days; but it never fails to make me barf. The gulf between word and deed on that topic would be laughable were it not so unfunny. This doesn't have to cost employers money. I’ve seen large companies ‘leasing out’ their HR expertise to smaller firms in the vicinity, so that Human Resources Department isn’t just an expense line any more, it’s a revenue-generator. Surely the same could be accomplished with an intelligently-run, onsite crèche facility?

From the employer perspective, this is fundamentally a productivity issue. Neuroscience has now demonstrated that multitasking or distraction has a significantly adverse effect on productivity. If a parent is worried about their child, worried about leaving in time to beat the traffic or whatever, they cannot be focused on the task at hand. They just can't. As our economic reality now demands dual incomes for the majority of households, it behoves large corporates to conduct some research on this. Canteens are provided in large businesses because it is the most efficient solution to the productivity-draining issue of feeding large numbers of staff quickly and efficiently. Those employers are satisfying their staff’s biological needs in a way that has the most benefit for that employer’s productivity needs.

Now, I hope this doesn't come as a shock to you, but reproduction is one of those biological imperatives. Large numbers of your employees are going to reproduce. It’s a simple reality in the workplace and if you don’t help your employees out in some way, they are going to get more distracted than they need to be and you are going to feel that pain. Alternatively, you may never gain the benefit of these bright young things, as they will seek to work with an employer who is more cognisant of their needs and who provides peace of mind to staff with young children.

The millhouse and workers' cottages at Rathfarnham, Dublin

Mines, mills, factories and breweries built houses for their workers because it made economic sense. Large companies provide canteen facilities because it makes economic sense. I’d like to see some creativity in this area – perhaps something tied in with the local Chamber of Commerce? Childcare for the younger age group is massively expensive, but there have to be economies of scale that can be brought to bear on this with a bit of original thinking and some collective procurement. What do you think?

Common Interview Questions: #3 Do you have any questions for us? (Part 1)

At some point in the interview process, someone inevitably smiles at you and says,  "I am sure you must have some questions for us?" Most candidates hate this part of the interview, regard it as being very difficult to do at the end of a tiring, stressful process and trot out one or two trite little questions that utterly fail to impress the interviewers. And that last point is the key – if you have intelligent, well-researched questions to ask, you have yet another chance to impress the powers-that-be and distinguish yourself from the herd. The three most common mistakes I see in reponse to this question are:

• Having no questions at all to ask, either due to amnesia, fatigue, lack of preparation or because they answered any concerns you had as the interview progressed.
• Asking needy, self-serving questions about salary, benefits, working hours, training, holidays, etc.
• Asking clichéd questions.

Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If "needy" were a turn-on? [Albert Brooks in Broadcast News]

What does a clichéd question look like in its natural habitat? Well, I have just come across yet another piece on this topic in the 'Advice for Job-Hunters' section of yet another jobsite. The questions they suggest asking are:

• Do you have any concerns, now that the interview is coming to an end, as to my ability to do this job?
• Are there any concerns I need to expand upon in order to become your first choice for this job?
• What is the next stage in the selection process?
  

I would not recommend asking any of these questions if you want to be taken seriously by any, even semi-skilled, interviewer and I would guess that the person who wrote these has little or no experience in conducting selection interviews. Allow me to give you a peek as to what is going through the head of a tired interviewer when you trot out rubbish like the above:

• "Do I have any concerns about your ability to do this job? Well, let me put it this way; if I haven't drilled down on your basic ability to that extent, it is either because (a) you patently don't have the skills, knowledge or experience to fulfil the role at the level I require here or (b) I just don't like you. Either way, do you think there's any chance that I'm going to tell you that now, so you can get into a whole huffy, defensive piece about how you'd be perfect for the job? Get real dude ..."
  

• "Do I have any concerns that I want you to expand upon? Lord no! I want you gone. Now. (see above)"
  

• "The next stage is the next stage. It will happen when it happens and when we decide it's going to happen. At that point, we will communicate our intentions to you, so please don't waste my time with this kind of nonsense."

The first two clichéd questions are sales-y, 'trial close' questions. That approach can work when you are seeking to identify if someone has any worry about buying your uberwidget, but it does not work when you are selling yourself. If you are applying for a Sales, Marketing or Biz Dev role, you might want to ask a question of this nature – particularly if you get the feeling that the interviewer is 'Old School', but I would preface it by saying:

"I was always trained to asked for the business when I was coming to the end of a meeting, so let me ask – am I in the frame for this job? Is there anything I need to offer reassurance or more evidence on? Because this looks like a great company and I'd really like to be your preferred candidate for the role." 

That will probably elicit a smile from any seasoned Salesperson, but the way the questions above are framed, they are likely to do nothing other than irritate the interviewer.

So what should you ask? The starting point, as always, is to look at it from their perspective – why do interviewers ask this question of all candidates? It would be understandable if they just asked it of those they were seriously thinking about hiring, but they don’t – everyone gets asked this one. So clearly, it tells the interviewer(s) more about you which can help them in the weeding-out/selection process. What, then, does it tell them?

• Baldly and simply, it signifies that the back-and-forth part of the interview is over.

• It allows them to cross-check your answers as to why you want to work for the organisation (usually asked very early in the interview).

• It helps to identify, or confirm, self-serving candidates who are looking to join the organisation, extract as much training and good experience as they can out of it for their CV, and then quickly jump ship.
  

• Likewise ill-prepared candidates. This question helps the interviewer to assess the level and quality of your preparation for the interview – very important these days. If you won’t work hard in preparing for interview on your own behalf (and here, we again make the not unreasonable assumption that you do actually care about yourself), what chance is there that you will prepare well for an important element of the job on their behalf? This is an obvious question. You know they are going to ask it. What do you mean you don’t have some decent questions ready to ask? You obviously don’t care whether or not you get the job – what else are they going to think?

• If you are being interviewed for a mid-ranking or senior position, the questions that you ask enable the interviewers to assess your professional mindset. Are you a general or a foot-soldier, do you have management potential? In other words, are you a player?

We'll build some sample probes to ask in Part 2; in the meantime here's a noted Career Advice Guru* discussing this subject in a useful back-and-forth 3 minute podcast.

* I love that word "Guru," I really do. It always reminds me of Peter Drucker's wonderful observation: "I have been saying for many years that people use the word ‘guru’ only because ‘charlatan’ is too long to fit into a headline." The word 'Guru' has the dubious advantage of being both shorter and easier to spell ...

A singular honour

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I just got word that we've been nominated for a National Radio Award here in Ireland for the Seminar we ran back in the Spring with Q102. A huge thanks to Scott and the team on the QT Phone-in Programme – especially Venetia, who grabbed the idea and ran with it, putting in a massive amount of work to ensure the success of the event.

You can find our discussions from that time starting here. 

• Talking about dress code here. 
• Job-hunting in a 'dry' market here. 
• Downsized and not sure what to do next here.
• The Spring workshop details are here.
  

Tomorrow ze vorld!

Bringing up baby

The Irish Examiner on the challenges of finding balance once children come along. Extracts:

Having a workplace creche like Cois Laoi at UCC means you spend more time with your children and it’s comforting to know they’re only minutes away.

BRINGING THE BABY IN WITH THE BRIEFCASE

Parents are struggling with the work/life balance. So is it ever ok to bring your kids
to work, asks Kathy Foley

Is it ever acceptable to bring your child to work with you? Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, a member of the minority opposition Green party in Australia, thought it couldn’t hurt once in a while. Earlier this month, the senator was at work in Canberra and saying goodbye to Kora, her two-year-old daughter, who was about to be taken back to Adelaide by her nanny.

In the midst of the fond farewell, Hanson-Young was called into the Senate chamber for an on-the-spot vote. Once the bells ring for such a vote, the senators have just four minutes to get to the chamber. Kora’s nanny was in the senator’s office, a floor up and more than four minutes away. So the senator did something she had done before and took her daughter into the chamber for the vote. The Senate President, John Hogg, promptly ruled Kora should be removed from the chamber by a staffer, as she was technically a “stranger in the house.” As the senators voted, Kora could be heard screaming loudly outside the door of the chamber. Her mum said it was the “most humiliating” moment of her life, indicating she hadn’t found herself in too many mildly embarrassing situations prior to that. The senator, a vocal campaigner for more childcare provision, was later forced to deny the episode was a publicity stunt. “I think it’s an issue that affects all parents,” she said. “I just happen to be the one that’s in the spotlight at the moment, but the constant balance juggling family and work is always going to be an issue.”

It’s so rare for children to be allowed in any workplace that a small creative consultancy in Pittsburgh was featured in Fortune magazine, precisely because its employees may bring their babies into the office whenever they like. “Babies at work, four-week vacations, continuing education — it’s important to strike a good balance between work and life,” Mickey McManus, the CEO and president of Maya Design, told Fortune. McManus is certainly an exception among bosses. Irish experts say it is almost never seen as acceptable to bring your child to your workplace.

“I can think of only two instances when it is acceptable,” said Rowan Manahan of Fortify Services, a career and workplace consultancy. "First, it is bring-your-offspring-to-work day at your office. Second, your company is conducting focus groups with kids in your offspring’s age bracket. Most workplaces just aren’t suitable places for children. The facilities are designed for adults and there isn’t usually a whole heap of things for kids to do, unless they persuade someone to let them photocopy their face or play in the stationery cupboard. To be fair, I have seen instances of self-sufficient pre-teens tootling away on their Nintendo or being parked in a spare cubicle to do their homework with no apparent interruption to the working day; but unless your place of work operates some kind of after-school care facility, I wouldn’t recommend doing that more than a couple of times a year," said Manahan.

... Whether you work in a surgery, a shoe shop or the Seanad, bringing your child to work is just not the done thing, unless it’s a dire childcare emergency. What about bringing work to your children, however? Is it okay to work at home while there are children in the house? President Barack Obama, in an interview with The Today Show, said he is delighted his new job allows him to see more of his children. "It turns out I’ve got this nice home office and at the end of the day, I can come to do, I can have dinner with them, I can help them with their homework, I can tuck them in and if I’ve got to go back to the office, I can."

... Some fortunate parents have the opportunity to take their child to work, after a fashion. Those working for a handful of Ireland’s largest employers including RTE, UCC, the ESB, Eircom and Trinity College, can avail of workplace creches provided by the organisations concerned. These are often subsidised and can give parents peace of mind. If their child is sick, for example, they are just a few minutes’ walk away. Workplace creches usually discourage parents from dropping in during the day, however, as it can disrupt the children’s routine and stop them from fully participating in creche activities. Although a good idea in theory, workplace creches are not for everyone, says Manahan. "Some parents like the company and the chance to interact with their children on the way to the creche and get panicked at the thought of being late in the evening because of traffic difficulties or a slight overrun in the working day. An onsite creche, or one close to the workplace, satisfies those needs. But for commuting parents who want, or need, to be able to take calls in the car, that’s obviously not going to work."

... Manahan advises companies to think laterally when it comes to childcare at work. "From the employer’s perspective, this is fundamentally a productivity issue. Neuroscience now tells us that multitasking or distraction  has a significantly adverse effect on productivity. If a parent is worried about their child, worried about leaving in time to beat the traffic or what have you, they cannot be focused on the task at hand. Large numbers of your employees are going to reproduce. It’s a simple reality in the workplace and if you don’t help your employees out in some way, they are going to be distracted and you are going to feel that pain. Or, they will seek to work with an employer who is cognizant of this and who provides peace of mind to their staff who have young children," he said.

Let's do a reorg!

The wise men of the Dakota Indians reckoned that the optimal approach when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, is to dismount.

Phshaw! How unimaginative! I stumbled across some much better ideas and combined them with another raft of wisdom from a recent email:

• Invest in far more powerful whips.
• Change riders – find someone who is really serious about reaching this destination.
• Initiate disciplinary proceedings against both horse and rider for missing a clearly identified goal.
• Reclassify the dead horse as a "living-impaired equine."
• Restructure the horse's incentive scheme to contain a significant performance-related element.
  
• Encourage the horse to work late hours and perhaps a few weekends, until he has "caught up" with the shortfall.
• Appoint a committee to study the horse. [So obvious! How could the Native Americans have missed that one?]
• Arrange for the Tribal elders to visit other countries to see how other cultures overcome the issue of living-impaired equines.
• Revisit the targets and role standards so that living-impaired equines can be accommodated. [No dead horse left behind?]
• Appoint outside contractors to ride the dead horse – and set really clear milestones for the journey.
  
• Convene a dead horse productivity improvement workshop.
• Harness several living-impaired equines together to increase speed.
• Conduct a productivity study to see if lighter riders improve a living-impaired equine's performance.
• Note in the next quarterly conference call that, as the living-impaired equines do not have to be stabled, fed or watered, they are less costly, carry lower overhead and therefore contribute substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do the equines used by our competitors.
  

Or my favourite:

• Promote the living-impaired equine to a supervisory position, citing the historical precedent of Emperor Caligula ...