Who ARE You?

The first and most important thing to know for your successful job hunt is – who are you? Before you write your résumé. Before you create your elevator speech or Brand YOU Sound bite. Before you search the web for a new job. Unless you are one of the rare people who wake up every morning knowing exactly what you want to do, you need to go on a journey of self-discovery. Too many people make the fundamental mistake of not knowing themselves. If you want to continue doing the same old, carry on. You know what you want. But, if you want to make a career transition, you need to learn all the elements that make you that wonderful, unique individual that you are. Knowing yourself is critical for people in career transition. You have know:

• what you like and don’t like
• how people perceive you and your skills
• what you are good at and don’t do so well

This is harder than it looks. Just because you’ve hung around yourself all these years doesn’t mean you know, well, … you.

Job-seeker – Know Thyself Career self-assessment is the process of becoming acquainted with what you want and don't want in a work environment. This can be a DIY project. Simply make a list of your work skills, interests and values. Then rate them with a 3-point scale:

1. Positive – I want to do this again/more.
2. Neutral – I do not care one way or another about this skill.
3. Negative – I do not want to do this again.

Ask yourself some questions about the jobs or careers you contemplating:

• "What do I want to think about for 10 hours a day?"
• "Is this job the type of work that is worth sitting in traffic to get to it?"
• "What gives me energy at work?"
• "What drains my energy at work?"
• "Do I want to work inside or outside?"

And so forth. More questions will come as you go through the process. Ask co-workers, friends and family for feedback about yourself. Ask them for input on what are you good at; what are opportunities for you to improve; what are your strengths and what do they see as your work priorities?

As you go through the process, remember, what you do well and what comes naturally for you -- is the most important piece of information for your search for your dream job. Not everyone can that well and naturally. In the trade, we call this a clue to your dream job. F*R*E*E Online Tests There are multitudes of free tests available to you online. Most will give you a shortened report to tease you into buying the full report of their product. Some will give you the short version of their assessment and the shortened report. They are all good starting points for learning who you are. Ultimately, only you will know you.

Take a few of these and notice trends and patterns about yourself. See the general direction they point. Evaluate how well that matches to where you want to go. I have included personality tests as well. You have to know the whole you.

For personality assessments here are two: Keirsey Temperament sorter at http://www.keirsey.com/sorter/register.aspx Myers-Briggs personality type at http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

For job or career assessments: The CAREERLINK is a career information system designed and developed by the counseling department at Monterey Peninsula College. You can find it at www.mpcfaculty.net/CL/cl.htm The Coach Compass Assessment http://www.coachcompass.com/ "The O*NET system serves as the nation's primary source of occupational information, providing comprehensive information on key attributes and characteristics of workers and occupations." See if their claim is true for you at online.onetcenter.org. Finally, from Rutgers University careerservices.rutgers.edu/OCAmain.html.

Reality Check As you complete these, keep your expectations in check. No test will result in immediate career satisfaction or give you a 100% accurate choice. As I said earlier, only you know you. The tests are best interpreted as suggesting a field of work, rather than a single job.

If you need something more precise, it may be in your best interest to contact a professional. Jane Herman, a business success coach and author of the book, "Take Control Of Your Life," said "It helps to enlist the support of someone with an unbiased perspective. Many people seek out career or life coaches for exactly this purpose," says Herman.

You could ask family and friends for career advice. But, be aware -- people close to you have a defined image of who you are as a person. Consequently, they may not be comfortable suggesting ways for you to become someone different.

I can help you sort through your skills, experiences and your dreams to get the right job for you. I can assist you in creating a skills inventory, creating a polished Brand You Sound bite, and getting you on the path to your dream job. Don’t wait, contact me now.

A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream.

Warmly, Elisabeth

Elisabeth Adler-Lund Executive And Life Coaching Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com

Failure Is Good for You

JK Rowling gave the commencement speech to the graduates of Harvard in 2008. Her subject was failure. When she was a little girl, her dream had been to write novels. Here are some of her thoughts and mine on failure. "I was jobless, a lone parent and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless," Rowling told the crowd of newly-minted Harvard graduates. It was during this time that she was able to reach for her goal of writing fiction because, to her, she had nothing left to lose. "Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged." As we know JK Rowling’s success – nearly 400 million copies of her books have sold worldwide, and her fortune is estimated at $1.1 billion. Her early life and forays into fiction were far more modest. Her failures, in fact, ended up as the catalyst for her tremendous success. "The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive," she said in her speech. "You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity." Failure is not something we look forward to, is it? In fact, failure is something we go out of our way to avoid. And once there, we determine to never mention it. Looking around the world, attitudes towards failure differ. In Asia, it’s a shame to be hidden from family and friends; many European countries have created social-welfare systems that protect their citizens from the most dramatic economic catastrophes. Here is the U.S., it can be a good thing, but only if you turn your loss into an immediate success, such as losing on American Idol, but getting your 15 minutes of fame. Although we may not seek out failure, it isn’t something to be ashamed of, either. As J.K. Rowling went on to say in her speech, "Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way." Failure may feel dreadful, and may even be shocking, but it can actually be good for you. When else have you heard that message? Yet some of history’s most impressive successes started out as failures. Ludwig van Beethoven’s teacher told the young musician he was hopeless as a composer; then Beethoven went deaf, yet he still managed to compose some of the most beautiful music ever written. Abraham Lincoln suffered a nervous breakdown and lost several Congressional bids. Then he became a U.S. president and abolished slavery. Business woman Carly Fiorina disappointed her parents by dropping out of law school after one semester, but went on to be vice-president of AT&T and CEO of Hewlett-Packard. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, flunked sixth grade, suffered a string of catastrophic defeats against the Nazis and was booted out of office after WWII, yet is still considered his country’s greatest wartime leader. He summed up his philosophy thusly: "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." The stories of the world’s most successful failures suggest that what matters most is not whether you win or lose, but how you fail. That’s a lesson basketball star Michael Jordan took to heart. Jordan, often described as the greatest basketball player of all time, was cut from his high school team the first time he tried out. He went on to lead the Chicago Bulls to six National Basketball Association championships. In a commercial for Nike, famous for its failure-defying tagline "Just do it," Jordan says, "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Failure, viewed as a learning experience, as an opportunity for self-improvement, can build and strengthen new neural pathways in the brain. New synaptic connections are formed every time the brain learns something new. So failure isn’t only a great teacher, it’s a great brain-expander. Failure in business is, in fact, more common than success. Capitalism, like evolution, is all about survival of the fittest. What’s different about the survivors is how they apply the knowledge gained from failure. To take a lesson from automaker Henry Ford, who went bankrupt multiple times before getting Ford Motor Company off the ground: "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." The opposite of success is not failure, but mediocrity. British satirist Max Beerbohm once quipped, "Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best." Michael Raynor, a professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Canada, wondered why. To achieve big successes, you need to take big risks; if you take little or no risks, mediocrity is guaranteed. The key is to have a number of higher-risk strategies up your sleeve in case one or more of them doesn’t pan out. "It’s an indictment of what we’ve come to think of as the prerequisites of success," he says. "Failure can be beneficial, but you have to learn the right lessons from it." In other words, you can’t be a game-changer in the business world unless you try something risky, which might well result in failure. Sooner or later, failure is pretty much inevitable. In fact, a life devoid of failure is in many ways not a full life. As J.K. Rowling told this year’s Harvard graduating class, "It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default." So if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again—and learn the lesson. "So given a time-turner, I would tell my 21 year old self that personal happiness is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life. Though you will meet many people of my age or older who confuse the two. Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone’s total control. And the humility to know that, will enable you to survive its vicissitudes." J.K. Rowling You can conquer your fears. I can assist you to find your way and move on. If you are ready to take a risk and tackle failure in your life and tease out the lessons to be learned, call me. "What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."* Coaching will allow you to think positively. Stop you from prolonging negative activities like bitterness and blame shifting and release your full potential. Don’t wait, contact me now. A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream. Warmly, Elisabeth Elisabeth Adler-Lund Executive And Life Coaching Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com * Plutarch - famous dead white guy

What Does Your Résumé Say About You?

Does your résumé show you off to best advantage? You need to have a variety of résumés available in your toolbox. (See last week’s article for the three types of résumés.) You have to submit the "perfect" résumé to get the job. But what is perfect? Perfection is like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. What is perfect for one hiring manager, is not another’s style. That is why you need to be ready with a variety. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to answer these questions confidently.

• What should you include?
• What shouldn’t you include?
• What must you always include?
• What type should it be?
• What color should you buy of kid-finish cotton fiber stationary (with a watermark)?

What is the point of a résumé? This is YOU in your absence. This is a representation of you and who you are and what you can do for the hiring manager. It is one of your best marketing tools. The point is to pique the hiring manager’s interest, to have them want to meet you. The function of a résumé is to get your foot in the door and get you an interview. Keep this point in mind as we answer the following questions. What should you include? You want to include all relevant information for the job you are applying for. Don’t tell your entire work history. You want to go back about ten years. Only list your best skills and accomplishments that are relevant to the job you are applying for, right now. You want to pique interest, not bore with too much information that is not pertinent to the job opening. Remember, human resources or the hiring manager will only have about 30 to 60 seconds with your résumé before they move on to the next one. You have to grab them quickly. So include the duties, responsibilities, skills and education that pertain to the job for which are you are applying. Remember to include awards you may have received. What shouldn’t you include? You leave out accomplishments and responsibilities that are important to you, but not to your next employer. It may hurt to not be able to include these things. It is ok to grieve the loss. But think of all the things you don’t use on the job anymore. Employers only really care about how you will benefit them. Can you do the job they want or need done and get along with existing staff? So draw them a picture of the many ways you are the answer they are looking for! What must you always include? You always include you name, address, e-mail address and telephone number. Don’t laugh. I’ve seen résumés that don’t have (some or all of) this information. Always put your name and telephone number on every page of your résumé. You always want to include your accomplishments in a PAR type format. State the Problem. State the Action you (or the team you belonged to) took to resolve the problem. State the Result in quantifiable terms. (Example: Instituted a Customer Log of customer service issues. Was able to see repeat problems and came up with "best practices" for most events and to quickly return mechanical problems to the manufacturer. This resulted in a 25% reduction in repair service time and $50,000 savings from the manufacturer.) If your job is not "quantifiable" then tell a passionate story. For example, a social worker can tell you how they helped turn someone’s life around. What was their issue, what tools did you teach or show them and how did this turn their life around? Go for the heart. You always want to include the words and phrases found on the company’s website and in the want ad. You may emphasize team-work to one company, and collaboration with another. If you don’t change your résumé with these word changes, you risk being overlooked by the scanner. Using their words also shows that you "get" them. What color should you buy of kid-finish cotton fiber stationary (with a watermark)? Yes, this is only a semi-serious question. You will probably be completing online applications and attaching your résumé and cover letter. No paper involved. However, when you go in for the interview, it is always good to have a couple copies of your résumé with you. Go for white, ivory, or gray in a 25 pound weight. These colors photocopy the best. They also look professional. The slightly heavier weight than copy paper, makes them feel substantial. The watermark is old school and necessary. It is from a time when paper was king. By ensuring your paper has one, you show you know the formal details. And that will speak volumes about you. The main point of course, is attention to detail. You also want to keep your résumé down to two pages. Brief is good. In the 30 – 60 seconds they have to look over your résumé, more than two pages won’t even get looked at. If you are close to two pages, try using Ariel Narrow font at 12 point. It is compact and still very easy to read. Never go smaller than 11 point. Start your computer, get set and start writing! If you aren’t getting any calls for an interview, it may be that your résumé is not selling you to the hiring manager. Need help? Call me and we can put together a relevant résumé for you that will get you into an interview. I can help you sort through your skills, experiences and your dreams to get the right job for you. I can assist you in creating a skills inventory, creating a polished Brand You Sound-bite, and getting you on the path to your dream job. Don’t wait, contact me now. A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream. Warmly, Elisabeth Elisabeth Adler-Lund Executive And Life Coaching Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com

What kind of résumé are you using?

If the question makes you pause, you need this information. If you want a job, you have to know what kinds of résumés are available and what they can or can’t do for you. You have to submit the "perfect" résumé to get the job. You need to have a variety of résumés available in your toolbox. More on that below. What is the point of a résumé? The job of a résumé is to get your foot in the door and get you an interview. This is one of your best marketing tools. This is a representation of you and who you are and what you can do. This is the first impression people have of you. You want this to be your best foot forward. Don’t tell your entire work history. Only list the skills and accomplishments that are relevant to the job you are applying for, right now. You want to pique interest, not bore with too much information that is not pertinent to the job opening. Remember, human resources or the hiring manager will only have about 30 to 60 seconds with your résumé before they move on to the next one. You have to grab their attention quickly. There are basically three types of résumés:

1. Chronological résumé
2. Functional résumé
3. Hybrid or combination résumé

Let’s talk about the pros and cons of each type. A chronological résumé starts at the beginning of your work history (or the last ten years) and lists every job in the order you worked them, with dates. It is easy for you to create and update. This format is best when you have an orderly and upwardly progression of responsibilities and promotions in a single field and/or industry. This one is also good if you have no gaps in your employment history. Human resources loves this type of résumé. It is easy to weed out people with this résumé. In this economy people are inundating their desks with résumés and applications. They want an easy tool to get the pile down to a manageable level. This résumé gives them that tool. A functional résumé lists duties, responsibilities and achievements in appropriate groupings under skill titles instead of job titles. This is best for people changing careers or industries. You can list your achievements by order of importance to the next job. It is also good if you have experience in many fields or industries. If you have gaps in your employment history you can manage that too. You can more easily make use of volunteer jobs you’ve done with this résumé. It is more difficult to do and requires thinking about and seeing yourself and the duties and responsibilities in a new way. It requires research into your newly chosen field for terms and buzz-words. However, it does highlight your appropriate experiences and achievements in way that demonstrates how they will "translate over" to the new job, industry or field. Human Resources often feel you are "hiding something" with this format. There is no history. Many times, it is just too hard for them to get a clear picture of you. You just look like a bunch of parts, no whole. Remember, they will only have about 30 to 60 seconds with your résumé before they move on to the next one. You have to grab them quickly. If they can’t pigeon-hole you quickly, they may not even try. You are just considered to be not a good fit for the company. A hybrid résumé is a combination of both a chronological résumé and a functional résumé. You get to list your accomplishments in groups to package yourself in a new way, and Human Resources gets to match up your history. Win – win. This is also the hardest one to write. It is also the one most likely to get you to that new career. What type of résumé should you use? Which of the three types will highlight you best to your next employer? What did you decide? The answer is that you need to have one of each type available. That way you can be responsive if an employer asks for a different type of résumé from what you submitted. Some companies will specify what they will or won’t accept in the way of résumés. You need to be prepared to follow those instructions. If you are not getting calls for interviews for the jobs you want, you may have the wrong résumé. Or it may not have the right information to sell you to employers. Next week I’ll answer these questions:

• What should you include?
• What shouldn’t you include?
• What must you always include?
• What type should it be?
• What color should you buy of kid-finish cotton fiber stationary (with a watermark)?

If you aren’t getting any calls for an interview, it may be that your résumé is not what it needs to be for you. Need help? Call me and we can put together a relevant résumé for you that will get you into an interview. I can help you sort through your skills, experiences and your dreams to get the right job for you. I can assist you in creating a skills inventory, creating a polished Brand You Sound-bite, and getting you on the path to your dream job. Don’t wait, contact me now. A dream with a plan is a goal. A goal without a plan is just a dream. Warmly, Elisabeth Elisabeth Adler-Lund Executive And Life Coaching Telephone: 916 • 803•1494 E-mail: eal@EALCoaching.com