The “New Resume”
A question I pose to my readers is a simple one with a complicated answer:
What is next for the resume?
Is there going to be a new form of resume? Is it going to be the same for all eternity? Something in between. Here is the reason I ask this question.
As skills in a workforce goes up, it is going to be harder to quantify all of the skills required to complete in the global economy as an employee. When you consider a mature employee with 20 years of experience in all sorts of areas, do we simply live with the prospect of leaving this guy out of consideration or do we get a resume that is 20 pages long or is it … something else.
In our interconnected world, someone who is far more brilliant is going to come up with a way to better quantify our experience and to give reliability and meaning to that. Here are my guesses as to what it is not going to be:
- A resume or any permutation of such as we know it
- Blogs
- LinkedIn or other social networking sites
- CD/Web based powerpoint or flash presentations
I can be convinced otherwise though. Feel free to link to this, comment here or post this question elsewhere but it is something I am truly curious about and am interested in.
Feeling locked into your current role?
Most companies take a stance where they want to promote from within. If you are with such a company and you feel trapped in your current role (maybe you’ve been overlooked for several promotions, etc…), here are a few things that can help you out.
1. Go beyond your job. As I pointed out earlier, your job title doesn’t matter. Offer your assistance on special projects or tasks. If you have a talent that you don’t use in your job, offer it to your company. As a real world example, even though I am in HR, I also have done work in product delivery and supply-chain management. When my company needed that expertise, I could offer it to them.
2. Bring out the big guns. If going beyond your job description isn’t enough, it is time to take your skills and play to your strengths whenever possible. Nobody in the office likes a show off (except your boss). Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile.
3. Get additional education. Even if the company doesn’t pay for it. Even if you only do it one class at a time. Educating yourself is one of the sure fire ways to raise your personal capital in the job department. It shows you are willing to sacrifice a bit of time to give those skills back to your company (for a higher wage of course).
4. Talk to your boss. And listen. It is amazing what showing a bit of interest in moving up can do and the positive consequences that can take place when you listen to and act on your boss’s advice. I almost put this one first but what fun would that be?
5. If you take all of these steps and you still don’t get a bone thrown at you, start looking elsewhere. Or get used to your current role. An employer somewhere will appreciate a person that is willing to go beyond their job description, get additional education and talk to management when they have an issue.
And if you need help with that last one, CareerHub put out a great ebook on how to search for a new job.
Stupid HR Words
Human resources has a tendancy to make up new words or combine two or three words to make a word. One of my favorites that I use tongue in cheek is “on-boarding” (the process of getting a person started at the new company and getting them familiar enough to start training).
One of the words I recently heard was “over-titling” and I read about it on CNN…
“Over-titling” was a common practice in the tough financial climate of the past few years when, Coleman says, “many people were offered trumped-up job titles in lieu of salary increases. As a result, their actual experience level and value to the company may not be on a par with the salary they expect based on their title.”
Which relays some of my most basic thoughts in HR. One that I’ll share with you right here:
Your job title doesn’t matter
It is a life philosophy. It isn’t what your title is, it is what you do and what you accomplish that matters. That’s not even to address the level of “under-titling” where a person has one title but takes on multiple roles within a company. You can’t price that out using some simplistic online salary tool.
Drink if You Want a Raise
Maybe this is why I meet so many recruiters at bars.
It is probably also why I am paid well.
Just kidding.
Sort of.
When to Shut Your Mouth
Whenever I ran cross country, my coach always used to tell me, “If you’re thirsty, it’s too late. You’re already dehydrated and you won’t get rehydrated until you stop running.” The same sort of thing happens when you run your mouth in an interview. If you think you’ve been talking a lot, you’ve been talking way too much. And shutting up after you’ve figured this all out won’t help.
How long should my interview answers be then?
Most people who break this cardinal rule play it off as innocent. “Oh, I was just trying to explain myself fully.” Some even take it offensively. “I thought you wanted me to answer the questions completely.” And maybe they were innocent but imagining a meeting with this person where they are going lecture the group on the finer points of keyboarding for twenty minutes is not necessary. Being able to type is. Most of the time though, these long winded folks are simply searching for the right answer and hoping to stumble upon it within the ten minutes.
Here are four steps which you can pretty much guarantee that you will answer the question with the right timing:
- Demonstrate that you know what the interviewer is asking. Ask right at the beginning if you have any clarifying questions before you start to answer. It helps to pause before you answer the question and think about what they asked. If you have prepared yourself, this should be no sweat.
- Be detail oriented but leave out the kitchen sink. I like details about the questions I ask. Keep it detailed but focused on the question. As an example, if the interviewer asks “Tell me about a recent disagreement you’ve had with your supervisor,” don’t give a long back story about the history of your relationship with your boss or your relationship with bosses in general. Talk about the disagreement you had giving the interviewer enough details to have the answer they are looking for. Using that example, you definitely want to include that you resolved it to everyone’s satisfaction but you don’t need to go into the great time you had at the pub later.
- Confidently end your answer. If you linger out an answer like you might continue answering, I’m not going to interupt you. I am waiting for you to finish your thought and if you make it sound like you are going to continue, I’ll let you. I think this is probaby why many people don’t know when to shut their mouth: I won’t interupt them. In a behavioral interview, it takes some people a little while to put all their thoughts together and so I’ve learned to shut my mouth until you’re done speaking.
- If you don’t know the answer, make it snappy. THere are good ways and bad ways to use a non-answer. Good: “I don’t know the answer to that but here are the three steps I would take to figure it out.” Bad: “Hmmm, I…. ohhh… well, that’s a good one. I don’t know the… OH WAIT! If I…. no… hmmm” + 5 minutes. A lot of people fly their plane into the ground instead of knowing when to hit the eject button and say you don’t know.
And I’ll end with a story about a guy who ran his mouth for too long:
I am interviewing this fellow for a retail job and I ask him what a former supervisor would say about him if we called him. He gave this strange look and said “I don’t know what he would say. Probably that I am a cool guy and I am a good skateboarder. Hmmm…” And I just sat there waiting for him. Then he said “Well, it doesn’t matter. I don’t work there anymore and you guys don’t really need to call him?” Again, I just sit there. “Well, I guess he would say I was a pretty decent worker when I wanted to be and that I was late a ton because I was busy skateboarding all the time.”
To be fair though, there wasn’t a really great way he could have answered the question anyway. When you’re constantly late for the entirety of your employment, that is pretty much all your supervisor will talk about.
High Minimum Wage Driving Jobs Away?
Chicago Mayor Vetoes Big Box Minimum Wage
This would have required “big box” retailers such as Wal-Mart, Target and Home Depot to pay $10/hr plus $3/hr in benefits to employees whenever operating within city limits. While I find this particular proposal (and similar proposals) interesting, this is mainly to spearhead the topic of my post: Do high minimum wages drive employers (and jobs) away?
My feeling has always been that it depends. In a retail environment where prices are already competitive and price shopping is common, I would say that it would have an effect. In a tech sector where you can afford a bit of price buffer (a high minimum wage will likely not effect any workers) and with high differentiation and specialization, it probably has little effect. For industries that are necessary that carry low skill workers, the costs will be passed to consumers but there will be few attributable job losses. So overall, I think the type of wage increases we have seen over the last couple of decades have not been as harmful to our businesses. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be harmful.
Overall, like many things in business, moderation wins out overall. Moderate wage increases followed by a cooling period have shown the best results over all industries. And that’s where I feel Chicago really missed out on their wage proposal. Their increase to big box employers was 100% above baseline costs for other retail outlets in Chicago.
Worst ways to get fired
Here are some of the worst ways to be fired.
There are some interesting points to be made here but here is the meat of the criticism:
Strategy 1: It can be extremely taxing to ruin people’s day face to face, so create a little breathing room.
Besides e-mail, companies have been known to fire people by FedEx, registered letter, text message, voice mail and conference call.
Strategy 2: Consider the cattle call. It can build team spirit.
One company herded employees into an auditorium and gave them one of two color-coded information packets. Those with the same color packets sat together. The two groups were then escorted out of the auditorium through different exits. One led back to the office, which meant that group of employees could stay. The other led to the street, which meant the workers should file for unemployment.
Strategy 3: There is no such thing as “too low.” So don’t be afraid to test bottom. One option is to let employees figure things out for themselves.
One company deliberately left a new organizational chart on the photocopy machines. Some employees were left off entirely, and others were moved to new positions.
Strategy 4: Remember, no one is ever too old to play musical chairs.
Some companies in the middle of a merger have asked all employees to resign and reapply for jobs. The goal: to disengage from the old and reinvent the organizational structure - with fewer employees.
Strategy 5: It can be a nice touch when you offer the newly fired a ride home.
It actually can be, unless you’ve organized the corporate equivalent of a funeral procession. One company had cabs lined up around the block before alerting employees on the layoff list of their new jobless status.
Strategy 6: You know what they say: it’s always the quiet ones.So make sure the meek don’t go ballistic.
During a layoff, it’s perfectly reasonable for a company to want to protect its computer files, other property and the remaining employees. But bringing in armed guards, as some companies have done, can be completely dehumanizing. An inconspicuously placed plainclothes security person is far preferable, said Lee Miller, a negotiations expert who used to run HR divisions at three companies.
Obviously most of these companies were misdirected in their ideas of how to do a layoff correctly. There are three easy steps to do a layoff correctly:
- Don’t put it off. Whenever layoffs are on the table as the option you are going to be taking, just do it. Don’t wait for business to possibly improve. Layoffs are bad but you can prevent more by making your business much more competitive by doing layoffs earlier and reducing future layoffs.
- Take responsibility. Have executive management there to take responsibility in person for the end result. Apologize and offer a fair package to help move on.
- Be sensitive. Allow employees to gather belongings and say goodbye to those who are staying. Regroup with the remaining employees and talk to them about the layoffs and concerns they have. It is critical that you don’t shut off the remaining employees from the layoff process. Your future productivity and turnover is dependent on it.
And while layoffs are one of the most heart-wrenching parts of the business, good things can come from them for both the employer and employee.
Happy Labor Day
What have you done for your employees lately?
Labor day is a good time to reflect on that. Yes, you as an employer provide a job for your employees. Sometimes you enable them to do other good things with what you pay them (buy a home, put a child through college, donate to a charity). Your employees give back a lot too. They devote many hours to your business and maybe even your salaried people do a bit more, even if it is for the hope of a bonus at the end of the year (a risk they share with the business owners).
Have you ever said to yourself “I am sure glad I have Steve on this job”? I know I have. You should say it to them.
Many of the people that come to this blog (both managers and employees) argue for an adversarial role between businesses and employees. They worry about being taken advantage of. Sometimes the best way is to play hardball. Sometimes an employer wants to take advantage of you. Sometimes an employee wants to take advantage of you.
But that’s not always the case and that’s something everybody can remember. With your best employees in your company (which I hope is a majority), Labor day is a good reminder to say thank you to them.
I hope you do.
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About
Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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