January 24, 10:18 pm

The evolution of resumes: Are you keeping up?

Based on data I’ve seen recently, chances are pretty good you’ve submitted a resume to someone in the past year—or you will submit one this year. The US economy may be bouncing along the bottom, but companies are still hiring, even if it resembles a game of musical chairs.

Not looking for a new job?  Some situations still call for a resume, such as when an organization is considering you for their board, or for a promotion within your own company.

Because the workplace is changing, the use of resumes is changing along with it. So let’s take a look at where you might be on the evolutionary timeline.

Traditional resumes

In terms of a traditional paper resume, the fundamentals haven’t changed much in recent years. Just this past month a friend handed me his resume and asked me to review it. With all due respect to my friend, who is very talented and would bring great value to any organization, his resume was utterly horrible. It contained way too many details about small projects, and when reading it from an employer’s perspective, I thought, “So what?  What will this person do for me?”

Essentially, the resume failed to convey what my friend could do for another company. The info was there, but he failed to translate his experience into a set of transferable skills. Hence, it failed to make me go “wow!”

Want to improve your resume?  Get someone to help you wordsmith it. From an employer’s perspective, identify what attributes you want to see and how your proven abilities can be worded in a way to show valuable, transferable skills.

Once you’ve given it a good working over, give your resume to other friends and tell them to totally criticize it. The only way you’re going to improve it is if people criticize it, so accept that fact and dive in with the purpose of refining and polishing it.

Electronic resumes

Today, many companies ask to receive resumes electronically. This could mean attaching your resume as a Word document or PDF, or they may want it in plain text/ASCII format. Every application is different, so be sure to read and understand a company’s instructions before applying.  Social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook are also becoming popular for posting jobs and submitting resumes.

As with any resume, you have between 17 and 20 seconds to grab their attention. Since the “delete” button is so easy to use, your resume must make the person go “wow!” right away.

If you’re using e-mail, choose your subject line very carefully. Specific job openings usually have a job number you can reference, but in any case, a subject line of “seeking employment” is never a good choice.

To make it easy for the person reviewing your resume, write a brief cover letter and then copy/paste your resume into the body of the message.  You can also include it as an attachment, but if you only attach it you’re forcing the person to open the document, and that’s eating into your 20 seconds.

Also, because most email programs do not read formatting well, use caution to ensure your resume is easily readable.  Send it to yourself and some friends to make sure it appears like you want it to.

Hyperlink resumes

Finally, let’s consider a whole new type of resume, and that’s no resume at all. In this age of mobile workforces and e-commerce, some companies are foregoing traditional resumes and asking applicants to send links to their Web presence, such as their blogs, twitter accounts, and LinkedIn profiles.  According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, some companies are even requesting a short video demonstrating a person’s interest in working for the company.

Obviously, this type of resume doesn’t work for many traditional jobs, but it’s quite appropriate for a growing number of Web-centered occupations.

Because this trend is likely to grow, “who you are” on the Internet will be what employers consider in their hiring decisions, so be cognizant whenever you post something online.  One snarky remark posted in a time of fun or frustration may be what prevents you from getting a job two years from now.

With all this in mind, remember that a resume does not get you a job; its purpose is to get you an interview.  Obviously, a good resume improves your chances of that, so start with the traditional approach and be able to show you have transferable skills.

With today’s technology, you have the ability to research companies more than ever before. That’s a bonus, but they have a similarly increased ability to research you.  This makes having steadiness in your character and your work ethic all the more important.  Even if you’re not looking for a job, the evolution of resumes means that the evolution of your Internet use will someday be on the table for an employer’s evaluation.

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January 23, 4:06 pm

Some companies are blowing smoke

Soon you might get fired eating too many Krispy Kreme donuts. Why? To save on health care costs, your company has instituted a policy that allows them to fire overweight people.

As of this writing, the above policy is fictional. However, some organizations actually have policies that prohibit hiring people who consume legal products in the privacy of their own home, and more companies are considering implementing them.

The stated purpose of these policies? Save on heath care costs. They cite research that correlates the consumption of these very legal products with increased health care costs, and therefore claim a right to not hire people who consume theses products.

Remember, these products are perfectly legal to buy and sell, but if you consume them on your own time in the privacy of your own home, some organizations will never hire you.

My thoughts on this matter are not new. In 2005 I wrote a column about this very topic, which I entitled “Employer, Yes. Dictator, No.” The title alone should convey my opinion, but to add some data that informs my perspective, allow me to provide information published in reputable news sources as well as from the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and you can make up your own mind about the logic of these policies.

Let’s start first with the epidemic of obesity. According to the CDC, a “normal weight” individual averages $3400 annually in medical expenditures, with obese people averaging $4680 per year. The CDC also says nearly 30 percent of all healthcare spending today is tied to obesity-related issues.

For clarification, an adult whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is 30 or higher is considered obese, and obesity rates in the United States went up 37 percent between 1998 and 2006.

For the record, as long as you can demonstrate an ability to perform a job, employers cannot refuse to hire you just because your BMI is 31. At least not yet.

Allow me now to move on to something more controversial; sexual relations among men. The CDC refers to Gay and Bi-Sexual men having unprotected sex with other men as “MSM” (men having sex with men). Quoting directly from the CDC, MSM “represent approximately 2% of the US population, yet are the population most severely affected by HIV and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been increasing steadily since the early 1990’s.”

They also report that this 2% of the population accounts for the majority of all new HIV infections in the US, and “consistently represent[s] the largest percentage of persons diagnosed with AIDS.” It is estimated that 40,000 new HIV infections occur in the US each year.

What does that cost? According to data published by Johns Hopkins Medical Center and Harvard University, “people with HIV can get 24 extra years of life from modern treatments – at a total cost of about $618,900.” Actually, that’s an average price. Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham shows that treating people with HIV/AIDS is between $14,000 and $34,000 per year, depending on whether the person is newly infected or in the advanced stage.

Spending on HIV-related medical care in the US has tripled in the last 10 years, and the CDC says that “the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the US is more than 44 times that of other men.”

Finally, let’s look at smokers. The CDC’s most recent statistics show that “cigarette smoking costs more than $193 billion” annually. They also state that 46.6 million Americans smoke. Crunch those numbers and you’ll come up with $4,141 annual health-related costs for smokers. They also note that smoking accounts for between 6 – 8 percent of health care spending in the US.

So, let’s summarize these average annual health-related expenditures:

Non-smoking, normal-weight non-MSM person: $3400
Smoker: $4141
Obese person: $4680
Person with HIV/AIDS: $14,000 minimum

With these figures at our disposal, isn’t it interesting that to save on health care costs, some organizations are flat out refusing to hire people who smoke in the privacy of their own home? I’m not a smoker, but cigarettes are a perfectly legal substance for adults to purchase.

The question here is “how far will this go?” At what point will companies decide that they’re not hiring anyone with a BMI over 30? Remember, smoking issues are 6 – 8 percent of our national care costs, but obesity issues are nearly 30 percent.

Consider also the uproar you’d hear if a company decided to save on health care costs by not hiring anyone who’s MSM.

I don’t care if companies ban smoking in the workplace, but it’s a slippery slope when companies “reduce costs” by refusing to hire people who do legal things in the privacy of their own home.

Refusing employment to an obese person or an MSM who can perform the job is illegal discrimination … and their health care costs are higher than smokers. So what gives?

* * *

PS. I took a lot of care not to misinterpret data in this piece. It was written using actual data published by reputable news, educational, and government institutions. Anticipating doubting Thomases, I saved every URL for the websites I used to collect the information in his piece. If you would like to look at these numbers with your own two eyes, feel free to send me an email and I will by happy to forward you a document that contains all the URL’s.

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January 4, 1:13 pm

The number one rule for success in New Years Resolutions

It’s the first week of January, and many folks are bandying about their thoughts on New Years Resolutions. Unfortunately, many of those resolutions will never be realized.

The reason?

No time of completion is set.

Resolutions need to become goals, and a properly written goal includes a “by when?”

Without a “by when,” your goal is not a goal …

… it’s merely an idea.

Increase the likelihood of achieving your resolutions by making sure they:

– are crystal clear regarding what you want to accomplish
– are measurable
– include a “by when”

Give yourself added insurance by enlisting two other people to hold you accountable with weekly phone calls or meetings. These people can brainstorm with you to identify ways around obstacles … they can also help you stay focused, remembering to prioritize those behaviors that will take you where you want to go.

Just remember, the number one rule for success in achieving your New Years Resolutions is to ensure you have a “by when” attached to each one. Without a deadline, you don’t have a goal … only an idea.

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December 28, 11:15 am

For what it’s worth … Why the economy remains in a stall.

I recently came across an article in Bloomberg titled Job Creation Is Price for New U.S. Health Law written by the CEO of CKE Restaurants, Inc. (Carl’s Jr & Hardees). If you’re wondering why businesses are trepadatious about expansion and hiring, and why the economy can’t seem to lurch out of its trench, think about this man’s words:

“Our company, CKE Restaurants Inc., employs about 21,000 people (our franchisees employ 49,000 more) in Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants. For months, we have been working with Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, our health-care consultant, to identify Obamacare’s potential financial impact on CKE. Mercer estimated that when the law is fully implemented our health-care costs will increase about $18 million a year. That would put our total health-care costs at $29.8 million, a 150 percent increase from the roughly $12 million we spent last year.”

Puzder goes on to write that they’re having to cut spending to meet these new health care costs … by not building new restaurants. The ripple effect of that? No money to build new restaurants means no new employees.

He also mentioned a reduction in capital spending (improvements for existing restaurants) … this means local tradesmen are not hired to do the work.

To cut costs further they are making more of their jobs “part-time” (under 30 hours per week) because under the new law they don’t have to pay health care costs for those employees.

He went on to say that 62 percent of CKE’s employees are minorities, and 62 percent are female, and that it’s these folks who will be affected most.

Puzder also stated:

“Because we don’t know what our health care expenses will be in two or three years, we are unable to determine with any certainty how much our investments will have to return for us to be profitable. All of that counsels in favor of holding off on new investments and saving our funds. We want to grow. But we are unable to do so knowing that large and undetermined liabilities will absorb funds we otherwise would invest for expansion.”

Puzder quotes the CEO’s of several other companies who state similar things. I encourage you to read the article for yourself. Then you’ll have a good idea why the US economy remains in a stall … and looks to stay that way for a while.

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December 10, 9:01 am

Rubies, Diamonds, and Overcoming Procrastination

by Dan Bobinski

A progressive realization of worthy goals propels people towards their vision of prosperity. Unfortunately, it’s easy to let business planning and goal-setting get pushed aside in favor of more “urgent” activities. It’s also easy to let “good” things get in the way of great things.

To move forward on your path to prosperity you should first recognize that “good” can be the enemy of “great.” Obviously, good things are not bad things, but if you feel that something is good enough, then you have little motivation for moving forward to make things better.

People often tell me their dreams, but then follow it up by saying that what they currently have is good enough. I understand the need to be content with what one has, but the danger in hanging on to the good is that we rarely reach for our bigger dreams.

As Jim Collins says in his book Good to Great,

We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, primarily because it is easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great precisely because they become quite good – and that is their main problem.

This observation aligns with a story told me long ago by a seasoned businessman. The analogy is that of a man who has a handful of rubies. He knows the stones are valuable, so he does not want to give them up. But then someone shows him a pile of diamonds and tells him he can keep whatever he can pick up with his hands. The dilemma? The man must let go of the rubies to pick up the diamonds.

What about you? Are you willing to give up that which is good to get that which is best?

You may think that quitting something that’s good is not good, but that’s not necessarily true. Seth Godin, in his book The Dip, says that winners quit all the time. They quit doing some of the good things in their lives so they have more time to do great things.

The problem is that when people become satisfied with good things, they can easily procrastinate on working toward what’s best. To address this, we can turn to a principle in Stephen Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey says it’s natural to say yes to the good, so to move to more important things we simply need a bigger “yes.”

Here are some ideas that can help you identify and act on your bigger yeses:

Get together with a trusted friend, family member, or co-worker and list the benefits you’ll get by accomplishing your bigger dreams. This should not just be an academic exercise. The idea is to get emotionally connected to each benefit, because the stronger your emotional connection is to your core values the more likely you are to act on your dreams.

After you’ve identified your bigger yeses, set up regular meetings with an accountability partner — or two. More than three people gets a little overwhelming, so find one or two other people who want to see you succeed and ask them to help you stay on track for meeting your goals.

Lastly, help yourself stay on track by keepings your tasks small and manageable.

Beware! Procrastination can still be a problem!

Procrastination is a very real obstacle, even if you have accountability partners, so here are a few ideas to help you overcome procrastination.

1. Acknowledge that procrastinating creates unnecessary stress. In fact, one person I know says that procrastination is the opposite of success.

2. Break down larger, overwhelming tasks into small ones. For example, if you want to write a two hundred-page book, don’t do it all at once. Write two pages a day and you’ll be done in just over three months.

3. Attach a “by when” to every action item. With a clearly identified time-of-completion you have goal. Without that time-of-completion you only have an idea.

4. Choose one task and make it your day’s priority. Little things accomplished steadily over time create big things.

5. If you find yourself stuck, try using your moods to your advantage. For example, a woman I know once had a high-profile marketing proposal to write, but the words eluded her. Since she was more in the mood for talking with friends than writing her proposal, she called several friends and brainstormed various ideas for her proposal. These conversations revealed several new ideas and when she went back to writing her proposal the words just flowed.

Bottom line, be willing to give up the rubies in your life if what you want is diamonds, and work with accountability partners to help you succeed along the way. Without these in place it’s way too easy to procrastinate and you may never achieve your dreams, especially if things are “good enough.”

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December 2, 12:26 pm

My annual list of recommended reads

Every year around this time I publish my list of recommended reads. This year I’m focusing on helping small and mid-sized businesses fortify their positions, and I think the following three titles are absolute must-reads for that purpose. Get these books as a gift for any businessperson or read them for yourself.

Small Business Survival Guide by Jason Reid

Throughout this book Reid proves himself to be an awesome consultant. In addition to ideas for the new economy, the book is full of back-to-basics core principles that are so time-tested they are often overlooked. For example, the hip, cool marketing professional would rather have you tweeting and retweeting 20 times a day instead of acting on Reid’s advice to pass out 500 business cards a month.

Reid packs his text with enough proven wisdom that a small business owner is guaranteed to walk away with numerous golden nuggets after reading it. Not everything Reid writes about will apply directly to your business, but the principles will if you do a bit of thinking.

But don’t just read this book. Find someone you trust and talk about what resonates with you. Make whatever adjustments are necessary for your unique situation, sketch out a plan for implementing it, and then act on what you have decided. Another suggestion: Make implementation fun, not a burden.

I’ve survived in business 22 years. But I have to admit, after reading this book, I realize that I could have survived a lot better if I had Reid’s advice when I first started out.

Killer Facebook Ads: Master Cutting-Edge Facebook Advertising Techniques by Marty Weintraub

Weintraub hits a home run with this book, and if you advertise anywhere online, you will definitely benefit from reading it.

As a business owner I’ve been reading books on advertising for years, and I have to say Weintraub has done his homework. He provides comparison images to explain his points, and includes excellent explanations on why one version of an ad is better than the other. Some who want only bullet points may find the book too heavy with facts and data in some places, but I found Weintraub’s descriptions and explanations to be quite informative. Besides, you can skip over what you don’t need to read, and the explanations are there if you want to understand things a bit deeper later on.

The fact is that as long as we have the Internet, social media is NOT going away, and nobody has more personal data about its users (at this point) than Facebook. So, if you want a solid Facebook advertising strategy that reaches targeted potential customers, I’d say this is the best guidebook out there for getting the biggest bang for your buck. Even if you’re advertising on Google and not Facebook you will learn a lot.

Not only will this book save you hours of experimenting (and costly frustrations), Killer Facebook Ads is well worth the cover price as it will easily pay for itself in your first ad campaign.

Convert!: Designing Web Sites to Increase Traffic and Conversion by Ben Hunt

Whereas Weintraub’s Killer Facebook Ads is about creating effective ad campaigns, Hunt’s Convert! is about creating websites that lead more people to buy from you (i.e., upping your conversion rate).

If you’re not careful, you can pay thousands of dollars to ‘experts’ who will help you up the conversion rates on your website. The first thing I need say here is “read this book before you hire any such experts.” The reason? After reading this you may not need to spend so much money. As a case in point, I was in the middle of a website overhaul when I got this book, and reading it saved me plenty of hours (read: $$) with my designer.

Hunt acts as a consultant/adviser, not a theorist or artist, and straightforward advice fills the book. Two quick examples are, “Ask! If you don’t ask, you don’t get” and “Do not waste energy trying to reinvent conventional solutions. Save your creativity for the important work of understanding your market and their needs in depth, to assess the best alternatives to test.”

Also, knowing that one size does not fit all, Hunt uses a solid “if/then” approach for many examples. He also includes excellent screen shots showing the nuances of minor changes and explains how those little changes made big differences.

Take this book and Jakob Nielsen’s Prioritizing Web Usability and you have a wealth of information for designing websites that bring results (read: $$).

There you have it. Three books that will help small and mid-size businesses fortify their position. But please remember – especially during the holiday season – that our families are more important than our businesses. Yes, our businesses are important, but our families are even more so. Be sure to invest in those relationships, too.

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October 31, 1:23 pm

Strengthen your team with holiday service projects

Dictionary.com defines Esprit de Corps as a feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty shared by the members of a particular group. One great way to build esprit de corps at your workplace during the upcoming holidays is to have teams do special projects for other people.

A common practice at many workplaces is to have a party at a hotel or restaurant, or to do something similar in-house during work hours. I’m not saying such an activity should be replaced, but I know that teams doing things for other people creates a greater sense of esprit de corps. Therefore, why not let your teams brainstorm holiday projects they can do together?

Such activities could be for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, all of the above, or whatever you choose. The idea is simply to build team cohesion by doing something for others. For companies choosing to cancel everything because they don’t want to offend anyone, I say that is even more counterproductive than having a few people offended. Besides, you don’t have to have a single, company-wide activity, and you don’t have to come up with all the answers yourself—that’s what brainstorming is for. Ask coworkers to identify how they can address different traditions in ways that build appreciation. Your team members have phenomenal ideas, and they will feel valued when you seek their input.

For example, if some employees want to do a project for Thanksgiving, others who want to do something secular, and still others who want to do something for Christmas, then encourage and support those different activities. Leaders of those teams can even give short reports at company meetings to let everyone know what their teams did.

Here are a few seed ideas to get your brainstorming going:

1) One organization I know is replacing their annual workplace Christmas party with an after-hours, family-centered office decorating party. They selected an evening in early December for a pot luck dinner during which they will bring in extra Christmas decorations that they no longer use (or decorations they don’t mind loaning to the office this year). Their children will do the lion’s share of the decorating, they’ll have the kids sign a poster around which they will post photographs of the evening, and that poster will stay up in the office the entire month of December. Several people volunteered to bring in trees, so it looks like it will be quite an evening of family fun.

2) Another company I know sets up multiple teams to volunteer at the local food bank and homeless shelters. This time of year these organizations are quite busy, both in terms of providing services as well as processing donations. This means there are lots of areas to help, depending on people’s personality style. People with organizational skills can help out in the back rooms sorting and boxing donations, whereas “people” people can help out on the front lines, helping those who are receiving the services. Taking a few photos of people helping out (not those receiving the help) can be posted on a workplace bulletin board, along with a few factoids highlighting what was done.

3) To really bring together a small team (no more than five people) you can have them assemble their own box of food to deliver to a family you know that is in need, or multiple families if your team has the resources to do so. If you have a large organization you could create several teams to do this. In this effort people could make specific donations of food items to create a Thanksgiving or Christmas-type feast. Around Thanksgiving, stores often have special prices on turkeys if you buy a certain dollar amount during your visit. Someone could pick up a turkey while others could contribute the other traditional food items. Delivering the food can be done discretely (leaving it on the front porch) or actually giving it to people directly. Your team can decide the best way to do it, keeping in mind that the idea is to serve others, not to use this for publicity.

4) November is often a time for “rake up” activities sponsored by various municipalities, so people wanting a more secular team building activity could look into that, or organize their own rake-up activity.

These are just a few ideas of how teams can help others, so let the brainstorms begin. I have nothing against collecting coats, shoes, blankets, toys, and food for other, larger organizations, as these efforts are worthy of our support. But having your teams actually working together directly for the benefit of other people will strengthen your teams’ bonds on multiple levels, and I think you’ll be pleased with the positive impact it has on your workplace.

DETAILS ON HOW TO WIN A FREE WORKSHOP:

As an incentive for your teams to reach out and help other people, send me pictures of your team(s) working on a service project this holiday season. Entries must include at least one photo per team and be received between now and December 31, along with a brief description of what the team(s) did. After the first of the year I’ll randomly select two companies and provide them a free workshop or Webinar on Creating Passion-Driven Teams.

With your teams’ permission, I’ll also post your photos on this website to let other people know the cool things happening out there in service to others.

All entries must be received no later than 11:59 PM on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2011. All entries will be assigned a number as they arrive (1st entry, 2nd entry, etc), and on January 2nd, 2012, Random.org will be used to randomly select two winners. Winners will receive a complimentary workshop or Webinar on Creating Passion-Driven Teams. Webinars will be delivered completely free of charge. If an actual seat-class workshop is desired by a winner, the winner must cover all travel and lodging costs; but the workshop itself will be free.

The assigning of numbers to the teams and the random selection of winners will be final.

Have fun this holiday season by working together as a team in helping others with some act of service! I look forward to hearing about the different projects!

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