This question came from a busy professional.
How Can We Get an Interview When We’re Under-Qualified?
Some people may be interested in a job, but they don’t apply for the job because they don’t meet all the qualifications or have the specified experience. Why should they apply anyway?
If a candidate is under-qualified–as per the job requirements–what are three things he or she can do to still stand out on his or her application and snag an interview
anyway?
This question came from a busy professional.
I’m searching for career experts who can tell me the biggest mistakes people make
when making a presentation at work.
Most everyone has heard of the more common mistakes of not making eye contact with the audience and relying too heavily on note cards. But here are some of the bigger mistakes that you may not be aware you are making.
We will go through each in detail, explain why it’s such a big
mistake and then give advice on how a presenter can avoid making the mistake.
This question came from a busy professional.
What are career path options in the digital marketing industry?
There are several career options in digital marketing because there are several outlets within digital marketing.
A busy professional asks a question regarding working relationships.
I’m looking for meaningful, effective ways that employees in nearly any scenario can make themselves stand out in a good way.
It goes without saying that above all, you must continue to produce high-quality work, make the most of your time at the office. We don’t want any of the below to affect the quality of your regular duties or responsibilities.
In other words, if you are not already doing the below – you are already standing out (but in a bad way).
Once you have accomplished the below, you can focus on the next 5 ways to make yourself stand out.
A busy professional asks a question regarding career advancement.
When do you need a new career vs. just a new job?
When you’re burned out in your current job, how do you know if it’s time for a new career vs. just a new job? What questions should you ask yourself? What criteria should you be thinking about?
This is a question that everyone should ask – even before “burn out”. But, as you pointed out, many don’t consider it until they are “done” with their current job.
To avoid burn – have a career development plan (3, 5, 10-year plan) and regularly do a career assessment against that plan.
Some steps to get you on that path:
If you don’t have a career development plan, create one now. Decide where you want to be, do and have in 3, 5, and 10 years. Consider a 360-degree view of your life in 3, 5 and 10 years. To assist you in this, feel free to download this Dream Sculpting Worksheet.
Once you have your career development plan, it is critical that you regularly evaluate it. As you gain new experiences, skills and interests, you are changing. The career path that you defined 3 years ago may not fit the person that you are today. Take the time to reassess your professional and personal desires. Make sure you are not only staying on target – but that this target is still what you want.
The Next Career Step Challenge Worksheet may also help you with deciding if you need a new career or just the next logical step in your current career development path.
I know your situation is different. If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally. It’s easy to sign up for a complimentary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the business and time management books TimePeace: Making peace with time – the The Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations – and I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in time management, project management and work-life balance strategies.
Today’s question comes from a busy professional:
When does marketing meet customer service?
If your marketing and customer service strategies do not meet somewhere, your customers will fall through the gap. Having an understanding of how these two departments come together for the customer experience is critical to delighting your customer throughout their relationship with your company. After all, the customer will look at these functions as coming from the company as a whole, and as independent departments.
With marketing’s job being the first contact with a customer and customer service happening much further down the customer life cycle, these two departments seemingly have no overlapping strategy. But, we know this is simply not true based on research which indicates that the customer expectations set by marketing in the beginning have a significant impact on customer service’s ability to please a customer later on.
Thank you so much for your well-thought out question. Although the answer may be slightly different depending upon the specific market or industry, a good market plan normally starts with two pieces:
The market plan begins with the target customer in mind.
So – in essence, the entire market campaign is centered on attracting that perfect client.
You also need to keep your product or service in mind while marketing. You very well cannot market an automobile when you are selling a cat. At the same time, some marketing campaigns over sell the product to get that signature on that dotted line.
This is the situation that sets the improper customer expectations. This is the situations that will impact your over customer satisfaction ratings and increase your customer service calls.
Customer and Company satisfaction occurs when customer and marketing expectations match.
If marketing consistently over-promises to make a “sell”, they run the risk of eventually:
Even if the sales and marketing teams do succeed in this client contract, it’s unlikely that the client will return.
To ensure balance, the marketing sales account manager work together with their production or creating services teams, from the start.
Once the contract or SOW is signed by the client, the product team can get started on the product or service.
It is also important to note that the account manager owns that customer relationship. Therefore, once the product or service is completed, the account manager meets with the client to deliver the product, review the changes, explain its usage, review the original contract to illustrate all commitments have been met and get a feel for the client’s satisfaction.
Keeping both the company and client expectations in mind – upfront – can lead you to a successful conclusion. A sell isn’t the main event. The company is in the business of making money. Therefore, you must always consider the cost of making that sell.
I know your situation is different. If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally. It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.
What do you look for when you’re building an all-star team of employees?
Do you seek out those who fit into your company culture, focus on skill sets, or look for enthusiasm? (Or maybe all of the above!) We’re a small business and entrepreneurs looking for tips when hiring team players.
Executives discussing documents at meeting
What makes this a difficult situation is that you are a small business. You don’t have the time to invest in training someone green. At the same time, you may not have the money to match the salary requirements of the more experienced candidates.
I’ve met with several entrepreneurs that focused on enthusiasm and personalities, with the hope that the new hire would grow into the position. The problem is that as busy entrepreneurs and small business owners – you don’t have the time to train the new hire. What eventually happens is that the new hire never meets expectations, because they are never given the training that they were expecting.
There are a few ways to break this cycle.
The advantage of hiring contract or freelance talent is that you only hire when you need that particular talent or task completed. It depends on the task that is required, of course.
For simple administration and executive assistant duties, you can call upon Virtual Assistants services. This is great if your needs are a few hours or days a week.
There are also several freelance services for graphics, audio, video, copy-writing, social media and marketing.
The assumption with these contract services is that there is little training required, and if you are not satisfied with their work, you can change resources at the end of the short-term contract.
If you need full-time, in-house staff consider hiring a training consultant to create your orientation materials, your employee handbooks, document your desired procedures and then train your new hires.
This allows you to hire younger, less experienced staff (at lower rates), give them the training and orientation attention they deserve, without adding to your already overflowing plate.
The last possibility is to look at experienced but older candidates. Often times, older candidates have less expenses. Their children are grown; they own their own home with no mortgage; and they have little debt. They may even understand the difficult situation of the small business owner.
Therefore; they may be open to sliding salary scale (a lower starting salary with regular review for increases based on the success of the company).
I know your situation is different. If you would like additional information on this topic, please contact LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info
I am a business coach and this is what I do professionally. It’s easy to sign up for a complementary one-on-one coaching call, just use this link https://www.timetrade.com/book/WFSFQ
With enough notice, it would be my honor to guest-speak at no cost to your group organization.
A busy professional has this question regarding his professional career.
As a manager, how can you save your company from going bankrupt?
I want to know how you would manage a company that is going to fail. Should I give up or should I continue?
Firstly, I would like to commend you on your desire to assist with the success of the company. Too many of us see our positions as merely marking the work day time. We strive to stay in our role and not venture into other areas that can assist in the success of the company (and therefore the success of the whole).
Unfortunately, without knowing your current position/department or relationship with the owners, I can only speak in generalities. For instance – if you are the manager and NOT the owner, your influence over the company’s success is directly proportionate to your influence over the owners.
Also, sales drive the business bus. If you are in a direct position to assist with sales, you have a better opportunity to affect revenue.
Therefore, the first step is to assess how much influence do you have with the executive branch.
If you have that much insecurity in the success or failure of the venture, do you really want to be the one turning off the lights? First and foremost, you need to decide what is best for you.
Regardless whether you stay at this company or move on, your goal should continually be to search out what it best for you.
You and your talent are valuable. So, decide what you want from your effort.
For example:
Decide what you are getting out of this company (both professionally and personally). If what you are getting out of the company is equal (or better) than what you are putting in – we should chat regarding your specific situation. With a few more details about the company and your background, I would be able to give additional recommendations specific to your situation.
If it is less, then we should chat regarding your next steps.
At the end of the day, the company will make business decisions. Many employees will stay loyal to their employers longer than the company can support that loyalty. Therefore, make the decisions that are best for you and your career.
Hope this helps a little.
A busy professional has this question regarding time management:
When is the best time to add projects to our tracker, when a client pays or when we receive a RFP (Request for Proposal)?
We are finalizing our project management and service provision policies and although we track work from the moment we have to submit a proposal, we want to make sure we aren’t wasting valuable time tracking projects that don’t follow through. But we still want to be prepared with assignments and tasks when the bottom line is signed.
The simple answer is to follow your GOAL.
Is your goal really to not waste valuable time tracking projects that don’t follow through? Or is your goal to make sure nothing falls through the cracks, that everything runs smoothly and efficiently; and make sure your quality connectivity is maintained?
If your goal is to make sure nothing falls through the cracks, everything runs smoothly and quality connectivity is maintained – then you really do need someone to track every step from conception through delivery and deployment (and even afterward regarding maintenance and up-sale opportunities).
Does everyone have to be involved in every step? No.
Does every project have to be handled the same way? No.
Should someone be steering the ship throughout every journey? Yes.
Should someone be collecting metrics throughout every project? Yes.
Do you have to use the same tracker or project plan for every phase? No.
Not every project is created equal. You don’t have to treat every project the same. Having said that, you should have every project tracked from start to end.
The benefit for tracking everything is that you will be learning how long things actually take, how much things actually cost, etc. Even if the project doesn’t go to the end – you have collected valuable information to reuse and improve your cost and time estimates for future projects. You will have collected valuable data for process improvement.
You also have the possibility of the contract being signed, without up-front payment. They may pay on a payment plan OR upon delivery. In those cases, it doesn’t help you to start tracking only when the client pays.
You should actually be tracking your time and effort regarding lead-to-sales effort as well (i.e. how long it takes from receiving the lead to actually being able to submit a proposal). Tracking the steps, time and effort in this sales process also provides invaluable data regarding process improvement, need for additional sales tools or training. The overall goal is to reduce that lead-to-RFP time; as well as improve the Lead-to-Sale conversion numbers.
Does this type of sales project management tracking need to be the same as the development project management tracking tool? No. Sales could use their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool to track and analyze their effectiveness.
Bottom line – you aren’t wasting valuable time tracking projects, although you can waste your time collecting/tracking the wrong data. You can always, always, always use proper tracking information to good use. You just need decide the right metrics to collect and make the data useful to you.
A busy professional has this question regarding employee performance reviews.
She asked:
These are very good questions. Before we answer each of them, lets review some reasons employees need constructive feedback.
As you can see, the need for employee feedback isn’t isolated to those that are not performing as expected. Exceptional, Above Average, and Average employees all need constructive feedback.
Giving an effective feedback starts with understanding your employees’ goals and career objectives. Once you understand the “why” the employee comes to work – the better you can connect the feedback to their goals.
For example, if they want to eventually lead the team or become a manager, then focus on the skill sets that will help them achieve those goals.
These business commitments or goals need to be agreed upon at the start of the performance review year. These documented PBC (Personal Business Commitments) tie the individuals role/responsibilities to the company goals. Everyone understands how they can individually contribute to the company’s success. These PBCs can then be reviewed several times during the year and before the official performance review. Setting the stage in this manner makes feedback easier, because everyone involved understands both the employer and employee expectations.
These business goals need to be S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable/Attainable, Relevant and Time bound). With SMART goals, it’s very easy for both the employee and manager to agree whether the goals were met or exceeded.
The most prevalent barrier to hearing and understanding feedback is our mindset. The moment your supervisor releases a perceived negative comment, we automatically go into defensive mode. Our brain immediately will find situations that negative what was just been said or provide detailed reasons/excuses for the events.
Best advice is to continually focus on the SMART goals or commitments set at the start of the year. Use the agreed upon PBCs as your starting point. Since your PBCs will have specific metrics and goals in place for each performance commitment, it will be easy to determine if the criteria has been met.
For example, If one of the PBC goals was to standardize code reviews in the development team to reduce delivered defects to test group by 30% – and the employee (team leader) still does not conduct regular code reviews and the defect rates to test group are on the rise – all you need to do is share the past defect rate and current defect rates.
Then simply ask the employee if he/she feels if they have met that particular goal.
Repeat this until all the PBC goals are reviewed.
Once you and the employee have agreed upon the status of the PBC goal, ask their opinion on where to go from here.
For instance, if the employee agrees that the team did not meet the defect rate goals – he/she also agrees that standardized code reviews would have caught a number of these defects by simple review – and therefore would have been fixed prior to sending to the test team, you can now start a discussion on where to go from here.
The discussion is focused on working on a solution together. Perhaps it’s unrealistic for the team to take the time to gather and code-review each other’s work. Perhaps there isn’t enough time in the schedule to detail code review. Therefore perhaps the next assignment is for the team leader to investigate and recommend a development tools that automatically code reviews. The mandate then becomes 80% of all the code review defects are fixed before handing to the test group. Perhaps the new PBC is to automate the unit tests going forward such that a set of automated acceptance tests are run before handing off to the test group. Then the development teams continually add to the unit tests as they go along.
As you can see – these discussions then become the foundation of their next PBC SMART goals.
At the end of the day, keeping your employees involved and engaged in their own career development is key. Although the above examples were technical, this method also works on soft or people skills.