Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

A New Year, A New You

My goal now and in 2010 is to help people find meaningful jobs - quickly and simply - and to succeed beyond measure once they get there.  The first resource is my brand new career change book, New Job, New You: A Guide to Reinventing Yourself in a Bright New Career.  With a foreword written by the legendary Stephen Covey and endorsements from Guy Kawasaki and Dan Pink, the book quizzes you on your career motivations (do you want to find your passion, make more money, spend more time with your family? etc.) and provides concrete advice and inspiring anecdotes that map to your results.

For the cost of a paperback, you'll also receive access to a free 60 minute webinar to jumpstart your career in 2010, and best of all, if you pre-order books as holiday gifts for people you love, you'll get to participate in a free VIP teleconference (1 book) and receive free one-on-one coaching from me (5 books). I would of course love it if you'd buy the book, but if you can't, no worries.  You can still help by spreading the word via your blogs and social networks, or by posting a much-needed review on Amazon. 

Also, my co-hosts Christine Hassler and Lindsey Pollak and I will be hosting a special show on how to make a career change in the new year.  The broadcast will air live today (Monday, December 21) at 5PM ET. We hope you'll listen in or check out the recorded podcast.

Thanks so much for your support, guys.  You make everything I do possible.  

How To Be More Visible at Work

In order to be successful in the business world, your supervisors and colleagues must view you as a consistent contributor.  But assuming your boss isn’t someone who recognizes your achievements every day, how can you let people know what you’ve accomplished without coming across as an arrogant braggart?  Here are a few tips:

• Meet with your boss weekly to ensure she always knows the status of your projects. Show enthusiasm about what you’ve achieved, and your boss will think you’re passionate and excited about your job (in addition to competent).
• If you get an e-mail from an executive or colleague praising your work, check to see if he cc’d your boss.  If not, clip the e-mail, keep it in a folder marked “Positive Feedback,” and reference it when you’re putting together your performance review materials.
• When your team does an amazing job on a project you either led or worked on, send an e-mail thanking your colleagues for their hard work. CC your boss for double the points: he’ll think you’re a great team player AND a superstar employee.

I frequently tell the story of my first job, when I held a daily lockdown in my cube and churned out work like the future of the Middle East depended on it.  I hardly saw our Group Head, whereas my super-procrastinator colleague made sure the big guy was always in the loop. 

When our immediate boss left the firm, guess who the Group Head tapped to take her place?  Not Ms. Super-Contributor, but Mr. Super-Procrastinator.  If you don’t assert your accomplishments, sometimes no one else will, and you’ll be out-promoted by people who might not have as much to offer but are smarter about leveraging their contributions.  Remember, it's not about what you do, it's about who knows what you do.

7 Holiday Tips for Job Hunters

All job hunters want to know how they can use the holiday season to get a leg up on the competition.  Here are some helpful suggestions from AllianceQ, a group of Fortune 500 companies that have collaborated to build an exclusive and continually growing pool of job candidates:

• Don’t turn down invites to holiday parties.  The more contacts the better even if contact is minimal.  You never know who you’ll meet and the goal is have a contact who remembers who you are and what you do.
• Everyone you meet could be a potential lead, so introduce yourself well. Practice and perfect the art of introducing yourself. Again, clearly and simply.  Figuring out your “sound bite” is worth it.  It gets that conversational ball rolling!
• Ask for advice. Ask for information.  While it’s not really appropriate to ask for a job at a holiday party, speak the language.  Use phrases such as “I’m interested in learning more about…” or “I respect your opinion and wanted your advice about this career or job…” People are more receptive to being a resource than a means to an end!
• Take notes about the people you meet. After any holiday party, jot down on their business cards or on a contact info card what they do, a topic you discussed, or a common interest to job your memory.  This can be helpful for using in future contacting.
• Listen. Your contacts can provide valuable information and insight if you aren’t too busy doing all the talking!
• Be natural and conversational. Try to establish a sense of rapport.  Mention something or someone you have in common.  Ask simple questions to engage general conversation.  Above all, try to avoid sounding like your reading from a script!
• Follow up.  Be sure to ask for business cards from each new person you meet and then follow up with them referencing something specific from your conversation.

Springboard Project's Recommendations for American Workforce

As I've talked about before, one of the most exciting projects I've worked on this year is with the Obama administration's Department of Labor.  As part of the Springboard Project, I've participated in developing six recommendations to help American workers get the skills they and our businesses need to fill today’s and tomorrow’s jobs.  Today, we're releasing them to the media.  They are:

1. Create Incentives to Build a Better Educated Workforce

Increase postsecondary education and training attainment rates to meet market demand and provide personal opportunity by rewarding institutions and individuals.

2. Develop Nationally Recognized Workforce Certifications and Credentials

Empower students and workers by creating nationally portable workforce skill credentials that are credible to educators and valued by employers.

3. Communicate Timely and Consumer-Friendly Information to Workers

Provide valuable labor market and related education information in ways that are easily accessible, understandable, and timely.

4. Bring 21^st-Century Innovation to Education and Training

Reinvent the delivery systems of postsecondary education and training to get better and more cost effective outcomes for more people.

5. Unlock the Power of Community Colleges and Two-Year Institutions 

Build on the untapped potential of community colleges to encourage more people to embrace postsecondary education and to revitalize local economies.

6. Foster Lifelong Learning

Encourage a new mindset that values lifelong learning as an essential priority for personal and national success.

As part of these recommendations, I will be working with the Business Roundtable to develop a Workforce 101 online training course for high school and college students.  Stay tuned, and please send any suggestions my way!

How Much Time Should I Spend On Social Media?

I must get asked this question at least once a week: “how much time should I spend on social media?”  I was thinking about doing a post on it, and then across my reader comes this answer from Chris Brogan, a godfather of social media engagement himself.  Here are a few simple guidelines from Chris, who suggests breaking up your social media activity into four chunks and devoting a minimum of 2 hours a day to your social media presence.

• 1/4 for Listening – Start your day by listening and finding what the world is saying about you, your competitor, your marketplace, etc. In this space, I also count reading (reading other people’s blogs and other online materials).
• 1/2 for Commenting/Communicating – Spend time commenting and replying back to people on the various channels where they reach you. If that’s Twitter, email, or wherever you hang out, fine. In the commenting timeframe, I also include sharing. Be sure to tweet links to great articles, use StumbleUpon, Delicious, Facebook share, and all the other various tools that help people find the good stuff. In Google reader, a simple SHIFT-S gives an article a whole lot of new potential fans. In here, I might also add the act of linking in and connecting with people on various networks.
• 1/4 for Creating – Your efforts in content creation are every bit as important as your connectivity and communication. This might include blogging, making video or audio, creating email newsletters, and anything else you’re building to contribute something to the space. It might be posting those event photos in Flickr and on Facebook. Whatever it is, creating content of some kind should take up 1/4 of your social media efforts, as this is the way you get found. Search engines thrive on new content. Humans seek out new material. The more you can be helpful, the better your opportunities.

In general, these are pretty good, although I don’t necessarily think it’s practical for anyone with a full time job (even one that includes social media responsibilities) to spend a minimum of two hours a day on these sites, and it might even be damaging to your reputation if your boss or colleagues get wind of it.  However, this is why it’s even more important to plan your engagement strategically.

5 Workplace Predictions for 2010

SmartBrief on Workforce, an advisory board I am a part of, asked me to provide some predictions on workforce developments in 2010.  I'll share a few here and would love to hear yours too:

As the economy recovers, people will flock to employment opportunities that allow them to do work that's personally meaningful to them:  Once the job market stabilizes, all of the people who have been biding their time in unsatisfying jobs will look for ways to leave them, and employees will once again have the upper hand. 

The workplace model of "same time, same place" will continue to disappear:  Now that we can be connected regardless of our physical location, work activities will be distributed across central offices, remote locations, and community locations.  The typical eight-hour workday will be spread across a 14 plus hour window to allow us to attend to needs at home and work with colleagues abroad. 

Active Baby Boomers will force a new definition of retirement:  Although the majority of Boomers are reaching official retirement age, many have no intention of leaving the workforce, opting instead for non-traditional careers that allow them to give back to society.  

The hot button HR issue will be employees' use of social media:  Executives will struggle with how to moderate it, and what rules and regulations should be put on the books to ensure that organizational resources and property aren't compromised and that reputations aren't risked.  

A large influx of graduating college students (Generation Ys/Millennials) will put intergenerational dynamics on everyone's radar:  1988-1990 are the biggest birth years in American history.  Up to now, studying and improving how the four generations communicate with one another has been reserved for a small number of elite organizations. In 2010, if you aren't paying attention, you're losing your competitive edge. 

Young Professional Life in Europe

Here I am from downtown Budapest sharing some of my observations about the life and career of recent college graduates in Europe!

Spherion Research Suggests a New Era of Employment

The New Year is rapidly approaching, and with it questions of whether the uncertain workplace environment of 2009 will continue into 2010 or whether employers will be faced with the new challenge of rebuilding their workforce as the economy turns around. The one thing that’s clear is that 2010 will bring a fresh set of challenges from employee engagement to retaining top talent to attracting passive and active candidates who are poised to take advantage of new employment opportunities.

Spherion, a recruitment and staffing company, recently released 2009 Emerging Workforce Study: Forging Ahead: New Workplace Strategies for a New Time directly addresses the question of what employers will need to do to ensure that their top talent is engaged and will remain in place for the coming economic turnaround.

The study had an interesting section on career preferences.  Most employees agree that their most important career priority is fulfillment and balance (86 percent), that they have growing confidence in their ability to make a stable income within a traditional organization (84 percent), and that they are willing to take a back seat in their careers in order to make time for family (78 percent).  Most workers prefer a job that allows them to think creatively (95 percent), and where they are expected to think of new and better ways of doing things (88 percent), while just 42 percent prefer an environment where their supervisors set their goals and give them their assignments.  The vast majority of employees believe that an employer that promises long-term job security (97 percent), offers work/life balance options (94 percent), and a predictable work schedule (90 percent) makes a job more attractive.

New Episode: 30/20 Vision

My friends and co-hosts Lindsey Pollak and Christine Hassler and I are thrilled to bring you a new episode of 30/20 Vision, airing on Blog Talk Radio today, Monday, November 23, 2009 at 5PM ET.  We'll be talking about how to navigate the personal and professional boundaries of social networks.  Hope to see you there, and if you can't make it, be sure to check out the archive!

Job Fairs are a Waste of Time

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who has landed an offer as a result of attending a job fair.  You know the kind I mean.  You show up with a few dozen copies of your resume and are herded down lines of look-alike booths hosted by companies you’ve never heard of, collecting handouts and brochures in a plastic bag.   

I remember to going to one job fair in New York City just after I graduated from college.  At the time, I thought it was a good opportunity to network with corporate executives, except I didn’t realize that the people who typically work job fairs are low-level human resources or recruitment staffers who are just looking to get through the day and add a few hundred names to the database.

Perhaps job fairs are good sources of company information, but today, couldn’t you just get that online, without having to waste time getting all dressed up and commuting out to some convention hall?  And in terms of meeting people who work at the organization and are in a position to hire you, wouldn’t you be better off going to a relevant conference or setting up an informational interview? 

I look at attending a job fair the same way I look at posting your resume online and just sitting back and waiting for something to happen.  You can tell yourself that you’re looking for a job by doing these things, but if you want to locate viable opportunities that will result in interviews at the very least, you’re going to have to get a whole lot more active.  An active strategy includes researching specific companies that do the work you’re interesting in pursuing, and then using personal contacts or online channels to get yourself introduced to the right people in the organization.