Building Careers or Selling Dreams and Magic Beans

Let me tell you a tale of caution and disillusionment but maybe also of unrealistic hopes and an, all to rapid relinquishing of personal responsibilities.

A sad fact of life is that there are a large number of people currently unemployed and an even larger number that fear they will soon be unemployed.

A large number of these people will be either senior in status or senior in years and it is this group that can be so easily disarmed, during such times.

Its been a long time since they were in the job market and longer still since they had to ask other people for help. Our tale begins with Mr F, a newly unemployed hard working guy, desperate to regain his status and station in life and also, in the eyes of his family. Unfortunately, desperation is a negative emotion and a poor master.

Outplacement Companies
Seeking an edge to regain his rightful place in society, Mr. F paid an outplacement company $8,250, believing it would help him land a six-figure job in his area. At least that's what their sales person promised. Unfortunately, the company did little more than redo his résumé, encourage him to cold-call employers and expand his network.

Took Advantage
Mr. F, aged 58, firmly believes that the company misrepresented its services and exaggerated its capabilities. He eventually found a job, but without their help, and gratefully received a partial refund from the outplacement company, after threatening to report them to the authorities.

Alarming Concept
This alarm, raised to the righteous authorities, is simply a vain but heart felt cry, to some unseen, and benign power of 'goodness' or 'justice' that is said to pervade the complex societies in which we live. Our 'state' buildings are decorated with statues that give fantastic form to these concepts but they are rarely seen in public.

Two Sides
One side of the argument says that the company misrepresented itself but the other sides says that Mr. F’s expectations were too high. Either way there was a misalignment or lack of negotiation but Mr F's experience does highlight the naivity and vulnerability of job seekers, when they are seeking help in the most difficult of job markets in decades.

Unregulated
Job seekers can encounter a bewildering and largely unregulated array of individuals and businesses offering various levels of assistance. While some people have clearly benefited from their work, others have accused the companies of using misleading sales tactics. Selling little more than promises and vain hope.

Up Front Fees
Unprofessional “career management” or “career marketing” companies, which charge large up-front fees, are easy to stumble upon, the're on every employment Web sites. From the other side, it is certainly very easy to contact job seekers, once they have posted their résumés, they are in the public domain.

Senior Service
Given a startling choice, it is clearly more lucrative to focus on senior professionals and managers of advancing age, easily massaging their egos by claiming only to accept the most desirable and marketable candidates.

Beware of companies that place advertisements that appear to be job postings but instead are lures for their sales pitches.

Valuable Support
Many good employment and outplacement services provide valuable support and assistance, but others can easily misrepresent themselves and the effectiveness of their services, in an attempt to take your money. It is not difficult to find good, legitimate agencies that will meet your needs, but it is critical that you do your research and homework first.

Overhauling CVs
Many of the companies do little more than provide ordinary job search assistance: overhauling résumés and assisting with covering or introductory letters, giving advice on how to start networking and helping sort through open or public job listings. While this can be a legitimate and useful service, much of it you can do yourself or it can be obtained more cheaply elsewhere.

No Happy Ending
To stop you getting bored, let's look at another example. Mr B, aged 44, who managed the technology centre of an Technical college before losing his job during a restructuring, paid a career management company $5,000, after responding to what he thought was a job posting for professionals looking to earn $100,000 a year.

Instead, he got a sales pitch from a professional careers hijacker. He was told that a search for someone his age would normally take 13 months but that the company would cut that in half, guaranteed.

Magic Beans
Mr. B believed that the company was a high-end recruiter, with access to a vast and somehow magical, “hidden job market” At least that's how the company officials put it. They claimed that they had connections to positions unavailable to regular job seekers. A 'secret' path to a quick solution.

Only later, after he began working with the company, did he realise that it did not have any special pathways to job openings. He demanded a refund but got nowhere. Two years later, he still does not have a job, and the company’s charge on his credit card has helped push him and his wife to file for bankruptcy.

Summary
In the end, Mr. F was very unsatisfied with the service he received from his outplacement company but by then, he had taken another job which he got through his own efforts, using his old résumé.

Misalignment
You could claim that in both cases, the company maintained their morale and motivation over the period of unemployment and, in Mr F's case, you could equally claim that they had given him the impetus and confidence to do well during the interview but, is that what the company claimed they would do when first they met and agreed the contract, perhaps not. Perhaps the company under stated their ability to 'influence' the candidates.

Influence
The power to influence others is most effective when the other party is unaware of being manipulated or directed. Our wives and partners do it all the time and still we remain together. Only when the curtain accidently falls and the charade is revealed do we feel cheated, used and misled and then we realise it was all done for our own good.

Magic Solutions

We readily accept external influences in advertising and marketing. We even suspend our dis-belief at the movies but for some reason in desperate times and in the face of adversity, we are all too willing to believe in the 'snake oil' of instant resolutions, the 'magic bullet' of quick results, or the 'magic beans' of sustainable new growth, that the brightly dressed wizard is selling. Reality bites and sometimes it bites very hard.

Remain open to new opportunities but do not travel unguarded against old advesaries.
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Maintaining Morale

In these tough economic times, even workers at stable organisations might be finding it hard to stay motivated. This can make it difficult for managers to maintain a positive, productive work environment.

Strong staff morale is critical to ensuring that productivity and retention levels remain high. Focus on maintaining an upbeat work environment and sustaining employee morale.

Here are seven effective ways to keep your own employees motivated and ensure that your organisation remains a positive place to work.

1. Don't sugarcoat the truth. Open communication is better than silence and secrecy. Discuss the organisation's current situation and future viability with your staff. To the extent appropriate, share plans for riding out the recession. Invite workers to brainstorm about how lessons learned during past downturns could be applied now.

2. Listen to your staff. Sharing news with your workers is important, but so is listening to them. By giving them a chance to voice their concerns and ask questions, you'll be able to accurately gauge the overall attitude in the workplace. Because some employees may be reluctant to speak up, you'll need to tune in to subtle cues as well. Stroll through your workplace, do you hear laughter, or are people working in grim silence? Do employees seem enthusiastic or muted? Their behaviour will provide important clues about the prevailing mood.

3. Assign work strategically. Re-evaluate each staff member's responsibilities and do some fine-tuning so the team can work more efficiently. Make this a collaborative process. Ask your staff how best to distribute the workload. There may be duties or projects they would like to tackle, and giving them manageable new challenges can be motivating.

4. Protect staff from overload. Be realistic about your employees' limits. If you sense that your employees are overwhelmed, take action before they reach a state of burnout. Determine which projects are urgent and which can be put on hold or redistributed. Or consider bringing in freelancers to work on projects on an as-needed basis to provide additional support and relieve pressure.

5. Reward employees and show appreciation. Rewarding employees is less about offering material things than about showing respect and appreciation. Small gestures, such as saying thank you, asking their opinions on ideas and complimenting their efforts, can help show that you are grateful for their hard work and loyalty.

6. Talk about higher purpose. How do your organisation's products or services make your customers' lives safer, happier, healthier or easier? Is your organisation involved in philanthropy or community service initiatives? Remind your employees that they are making meaningful contributions not only to the organisation, but also to the community.

7. Focus on the future. Although you might not be able to make binding commitments or promises, now is a good time to talk with your employees about their career paths. Speak to them about how to make their jobs more satisfying, assist them in reaching their professional goals or provide opportunities for advancement.

By taking steps to boost morale and foster a positive culture, you'll see benefits beyond higher levels of employee motivation. A positive work environment is one of the most effective and powerful retention and recruitment tools you can have. When employees enjoy their work, they're more likely to stay, and the most talented job candidates will naturally be drawn to an organization with a reputation for having a great corporate culture.

More Job Hunting Tips for this Tough Market

"How is business? What's the job market like? What are you working on? Do you know of any opportunities that I might be qualified for? I'm looking for an opportunity; can you help me? How can I navigate this job market? What do I need to do to differentiate myself?"

Those are the most common questions executive recruiters say job seekers are asking them these days. The recruiters note that IT professionals—whether they're employed or whether they've been laid off—are genuinely anxious about their job prospects. So, knowing executive recruiters have their fingers on the pulse of the job market and understand exactly what employers are currently looking for in candidates, job seekers are urgently phoning and texting recruiters to solicit them for career advice. Some get as many as 60 such calls and e-mails each day.

Many recruiters say they would genuinely like to help every job seeker who contacts them, but realistically, with the call volume so high, they can't. Business is scarce in the recruitment /search industry, and the consultants have to spend their time on what pays: drumming up search business and working on projects for existing clients.

To help the poor old recruiters and the IT professionals contacting them, we have compiled recruiters' answers to job seekers' pressing job search questions. These have been organised into six 'tips' for ways of working effectively with recruiters and for increasing your chances of landing a new job in this terrible market.

Make Yourself Visible (1)
If you want recruiters pursuing you for jobs, instead of you haranguing them, you have to make yourself visible. This means becoming a thought-leader in your industry or area of expertise. When you become a thought-leader, recruiters have an easier time finding you.

For example, if someone is conducting a search for a vice president of business intelligence, they find out who's speaking at BI conferences and heading up BI-related professional organisations to find potential candidates for the job. The executives who are speaking at conferences and who are elected to boards of professional associations have made themselves visible to recruiters.

Obviously, you can't become a thought-leader overnight. The quickest thing you might be able to do to establish yourself as an expert in your field is to start a search engine-friendly blog and update it every day. Remember that this is not an instant solution. It will take time to make an impact.

Make Yourself Visible (2)
Another way to make yourself visible is to maintain a strong presence on the websites recruiters use to find and screen candidates, such as LinkedIn and ZoomInfo.

Offer Something in Return
You can distinguish yourself from the rest of the job seekers contacting recruiters for advice by offering something to them. You could offer the recruiter a lead on an employer who's either having trouble filling a high-level position on their own or who's looking for a retained search partner.

You could offer a contact from your network who might be perfect for a job the recruiter is trying to fill. You could share an article relevant to the recruiter's business or some other market intelligence you've picked up while networking. Recruiters like job seekers who try to help them. They appreciate the help and they remember it.

Don't String Recruiters Along
If you're not interested in a position that a recruiter calls you about, or you're in the middle of a 12-month long systems implementation and you can't make a move until it's complete, tell the recruiter up front. Recruiters are like every else, they don't appreciate being misled.

Similarly, if a search firm offers you an interview with a client that you know you absolutely don't want, tell the search firm straigh away that it isn't what you want. Clearly you should explain why and tell them what you are looking for. Don't go to an interview just to get some 'practice' it can be very distructive for your credibility.

Just as recruiters remember the professionals who help them, they also remember the people who make them look bad. Part of the role of a recruiter is to keep good records and most keep detailed notes on who helps them and who doesn't, going back many many years.

Bag the Résumé
Handing out your résumé at networking events is expected but it can also appear to be a bit "old and stale". Instead, try out business cards printed with your name, personal e-mail address, mailing address and cell phone number.

The advantage of a business card over a CV document is that it's "soft, genteel and not in your face", not mention it being easier to carry around.

In addition, when you give out a business card, you usually get one in return. As you place your business card in the recipient's hand, you can ask them to please let you know if they know anyone who might be interested in your background. When you get their business card, you can then follow-up with them via e-mail, with an offer to help them in any way, a brief paragraph describing your skills, and a request for them to forward your name to anyone who might benefit from your skills. You have started a dialogue.

Keep Your Options Open
You can increase your chances of finding a new job if you're open to being flexible in your approach; relocating, switching industries or doing different work.

Candidates that limit themselves to a particular geography or fix the type of position they are looking for, generally stay unemployed longer.

Consider consultancy as a career
This is also an excellent time to consider consulting as a career move because a lot of companies are much more likely to take on a consultant than they are to take on a full-time employee. It's a lot less risky for an employer. They can take on a consultant much faster, with much less internal deliberation, without three rounds of interviews over five months.

If you're going to be flexible about your location, the position you're willing to take, and/or your compensation, you have to give recruiters and employers a good reason for your flexibility. You don't want to look like you're being flexible because you're desperate or at the mercy of the market.

Network. Network. Network
You've heard it over and over, but it's true: Networking is critical to finding a new job. Most jobs are found through networking. Consequently, people looking for jobs should spend most of their time networking.

Reach out. Do research on companies you're interested in working for and do some networking to find people who can introduce you to those companies.