5 Things a new hire should do before attending their first performance review.

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

What advice do you have for a new hire about to attend his or her first performance review?

There are several things a new hire should be doing throughout the year (prior to their first performance review). The performance review or evalutation process really starts on day 1; not just on the day of the meeting.
Therefore, from day 1:

1) They should take the initiative to schedule regular (weekly) one-on-one meetings with their manager. These meetings can be as short as 15-20 minutes in length. The idea is to have frequent meetings with your manager about your challenges, your accomplishments, your questions, and your performance. If you take the initiative to set these up, you will always know where you stand in regards to a performance review.

2) They should already have created a Personal Business Commitment plan with their manager (use your weekly one-on-one meetings with your manager to do this). The PBC outlines your role, responsibilities, expectations and success criteria for your position. Once you have your commitments outlined, the new hire should create specific SMARTER goals on how they will accomplish those goals and how they plan to track and prove their progress on those items.

3) They should create an Accomplishment Folder and collect any and all awards, recognitions, thank you notes, and accomplishments in this folder (as it is happening). Trying to remember everything that you have accomplished the day before the performance review is short-changing yourself. Most people will remember the last thing you’ve done (which could be good or bad). But if you deliberately collect the information as you go along, you won’t be missing some important achievements.

4) Understand how the performance evaluation and bonus process works at the company. For instance: Many companies pool all their employees of a specific level or pay grade together (i.e. across department). For instance, all band or grade level 8 employees are compared against each other; all band or grade level 9 employees are compared against other band 9 employees, etc. regardless of their departments. All the managers that have band 9 employees will be evaluating your work against the other band 9 employees. If your manager is the only one that knows your work and value to you bring to the company, you may not do well in that meeting. The more managers in that room that know who you are, what your bring to the company, and your tangible results to the company’s mission/vision/goals – the better. So- if you know up front that this is how your company does performance ranking, then you will be making sure to market and brand your value to not only your manager but to sibling departments and managers. You will realize that business marketing is an important part of the performance evaluation process.

5) In one of your regular one-on-one manager meetings, request for a mock performance evaluation session in mid-season or even every quarter. Not only will you get practice in the performance review meeting, you will get an early report (with time to correct your path) and be able to understand how exactly the evaluation process will proceed. This is a great opportunity to ask your manager everything that you need to ask (with time to correct your path) without penalty.

In general – if you document your goals, expectations, and accomplishments as you go along (and continue to be open and transparent with your manager) on a weekly basis, you will be well repaired fo the reivew and not have a surprise at your performance evaluation.

If you are interested in more information along these lines, check out some of the free online career management courses on Udemy.com

Check out the 10 Career Boosting Resolution Laser Lesson

Check out the 10 Hidden Time Waster Laser Lesson

Check out the Get That Well-Deserved Raise Laser Lesson
Check out the Professional Development Toolkit

One mistake most career changers make.

Posted on December 27, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

The one mistakes most career changers make.

Writing their resume without the “new career” mindset.

Most career changers list their work experience and job tasks in the mindset of the past role or job title INSTEAD of the new career role or title in mind.

For example: You are a teacher’s assistance and you want to make a career change into Graphic Designer in Instructional Videos and Presentations. Instead of focusing your resume on everyday teacher assistance duties like watching the children, taking roll-call, distributing supplies and teaching materials, enforcing rules and regulations, etc. — you focus on the various instructional videos and presentation that you created for the classes, parent orientation, and teacher’s brown bag lunch sessions (that you did while you were in that role). You focus and highlight the graphics and software expertise. You provide actual video, presentation and audio examples of your work.

I am Laura Lee Rose, author of the books “TimePeace: Making peace with time” and The Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations. I am a business and career management coach that focuses on professional development, time management, project management and work life balance strategies. If you need assistance in taking that leap into a new career, please contact me at LauraRose@RoseCoaching.info

5 Resume Myths Debunked

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

There are some resume myths that confuse some job seekers. Here are some information to debunk some major resume myths. For instance: Does the resume absolutely have to be 1 page? Is a cover letter always necessary?

Below are 5 Resume Myths

1) Resume needs to be 1 page.

Resume can be 2 pages — but if the first page doesn’t keep the reader’s attention, the second page will not be read.

Your resume needs to capture the attention and interest (and keep it) throughout.

2) Need to list all your employment history and tasks

Only highlight the employment history and tasks that are relevant to the current position that you are applying for.

Since your resume needs to capture and keep the attention right away, discussing how you flipped hamburgers in a resume that you are applying as web site designer position is distracting.

3) Need to reuse the same resume for all potential job applications

20 years ago, you often created one resume, created 60 copies and mailed the same resume out to everyone.

With the ease of electronics, you should customize each resume to the verbage, responsibilities and role that was documented in the position description. Customerize your resume to perfectly match the positions descriptions (if you have the proper background for the job).

4) Stick to the job position and title that you’ve held in the past.

One mistake is to think that you need to first get hired into a similar position and then expand into a different role after you are hired.

By highlighting your transferable skills (instead of the job title), you can position your resume to fit alternative or adjacent roles. For instance, if your work experience is in testing, you can highlight your trouble-shooting, test lead, customer orientation, usability focus group and customer advocacy background into a Technical Support Manager position or even Business Analyst position.

5) There’s no longer a need for a cover letter.

A cover letter allows you to better illustrate your fitness for this particular job. It is encouraged to expand upon the skills and tangible results that illustrates your value and contributions to past and future employers. It’s also a good idea to highlight what additional benefits you bring to this particular company and position as well.

The bottom line is that there really isn’t just one answer or one type of resume. Work with a business coach or recruiter to decide the best format and strategy for your individual goal. It may be creating one format for one type of job; and a different format or strategy for another type of job or career change.

I am a business and career management coach that focuses on time management, project management, professional development and work life balance strategies. I have authored several books, including “TimePeace: Making peace with time” and “The Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations.” I also have an online Professional Development Toolkit program that goes into the who, what, where, when, why and how of all of the above. If you are interested in the online program, please follow https://www.udemy.com/it-professional-development-toolkit/

What’s the best way to get promoted?

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

What’s the best way to present/position yourself so that higher-ups will want to promote you. With many hiring decisions today made by more tha one person – particularly in larger companies – people need to make themselves “promotable”. So what strategies do you recommend for positioning oneself accordingly?

Effective Business Networking is still critical for advancement. People do business with people they know, like and trust. As you mentioned in your question, committees are not only responsible for hiring and performance evaluations; but for re-organizational decisions as well. If your manager is the only one that understands your value to his/her department, you are doing a disservice to yourself.

Quick things to keep in mind:

Marketing and Branding of the product YOU. Attack this as the CEO of your own career and the product you are promoting is YOU.
Create a Business, Marketing, Branding and Networking plan that consists of the proper managers, mentors, customers, departments and even technical recruiters. Include contacts associated with the groups and pay grade (employment level) of your desired promotion levels. This should be your Marketing Plan to attract your prestigious projects, clients and promotions.
Religiously schedule and follow your network and marketing plan. Work with a business coach or mentors (of the same experience that you are trying to achieve).
Understand the responsibilities of the pay grade or employee level that you have your eye on — and start accepting those roles.
Align your personal business goals with the company missions/vision/goals – i.e. Actually generate revenue for the company through your performance. Be able to quantify your performance with tangible numbers of how your direct results increased their revenue, lowered their costs, reduced their time to delivery or sale.

Think like the owner of a very valuable product (YOU) and you want to get it into the right hands.

The Professional Development Toolkit online course goes into the who, what, where, when, why and how of all of these things.

Check it out at https://www.udemy.com/it-professional-development-toolkit/

Pay Raise Up Ahead

Posted on December 14, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

There are some supplemental online courses available on this topic as well:

Get that Well-Deserved Raise at https://www.udemy.com/how-to-get-that-well-deserved-raise/
10 Career Boosting Resolutions at https://www.udemy.com/10-career-boosting-resolutions/
Professional Development Toolkit at https://www.udemy.com/how-to-get-that-well-deserved-raise/

Check them out to see if you are interested in more tips.

Do’s and Don’ts tips for turning intern or temporary positions into a permanent position

Posted on November 29, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

Tis the season for intern and part-time positions. It’s a great time to get some extra cash but how do you turn these short-term positions into long-term gains? Here are some quick tips for workers who hold a seasonal position, and are interested in turning it into a permanent gig.

Do’s and Don’ts tips for turning intern or temporary positions into a permanent position:

1) Don’t dedicate all your time and effort into “doing your assigned job well” — Do illustrate your value throughout the organization, not just at your assigned task.
2) Don’t continue to remind them of your end-date – Do talk about what you can do for the New Year, Spring and Summer projects.
3) Don’t act as if this is a temporary job – Do act as if this is your company by implementing process improvements, creating reducing cost utilites, increasing sale and sending referral/leads to marketing

The holiday season is a great time to focus on career management and professional development. Think of it:

The workload is slowing down
Executives are preparing New Year strategies.
Performance evaluations are just around the corner
You have some time away from the office

Check out the new online and free course 10 Career Boosing Resolutions at https://www.udemy.com/10-career-boosting-resolutions/

Or How to Get that Well-Deserved Raise at https://www.udemy.com/how-to-get-that-well-deserved-raise/

3 steps to managing people you don’t like

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

The most effective way to managing people you don’t like is to focus on their positive attributes and not on their annoying habits. Everyone has idiosyncrosies. Everyone brings different things to the party. That is what makes the work force both rich and challenging.

By focusing on the positive attributes and talents that the individual brings to the team, you can not only more easily manage around the uncomfortable areas; but turn those negatives into positives. For instance, if you feel that he/she is too much of a braggart and wanting the spotlight – assign him marketing and promotional activities in which his salesmanship is an advantage to your team. Send him to networking and marketing events. Have those attributes work in your favor.
Also – often the thing you don’t like about someone is a mirror into something you don’t like about yourself. So doing some sole-searching on why you don’t get along with someone might help as well. Seek to improve yourself in those same areas.
Lastly, understand that you can not change how other people respond to you, but you can chang how you respond to others. If the person is constantly late with his/her work (regardless of how little or how easy the task), never assign them a task in the critical path; never put them in the position of becoming the bottleneck of the project.

In my IT Professional Development Toolkit, I go into the: who, what, where, when and how to accomplish all of the above. I also have a transferrable skill worksheet. For more information about the toolkit, please contact https://www.udemy.com/it-professional-development-toolkit/

Or sign up for my weekly Time and Career Management Newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/cZ9_-/

What can an unemployed job seeker do to keep their skills sharp?

Posted on November 13, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

What can an unemployed job seeker do to keep their skills sharp and relevant while they are searching for a new job?

There are several ways to keep your skills sharp:

1) Volunteer your services to non-profits and small businesses. You need to make sure you are offering your services in the area of your job skills/expertise. Example: You are a web-designer. Offer to redo a small business website with the understanding that you can place your logo and designed-by contact information on the pages.

2) Continue your education. Use those training and certification classes as networking opportunities as well as keeping your skills sharp. Most likely the people in that class are being sent there by their company to gain this new skill and may be looking for additional resources. Add these people to your LinkedIn.com network and ask them for their recommendations, endorsements and possibly add them to your reference lists.

3) Develop/create your own utility or product that uses the skill you want to advertise and promote. This could be a tool that you offer free on the internet – OR – a presentation video on YouTube – OR – a training video on YouTube, facebook, linkedIn, etc.

The goal is to come up with ideas that both keep your skills sharp and helps get you that job. Each of these solutions have an affect on your resume and cover letters. You gain additional work experience, recommendations, and references for your resume and cover letters. You can also refer potential employers to your internet product or YouTube training videos.

How to Repair a Damaged Relationship with Your Boss

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose – author of the books TimePeace: Making peace with time – and the Book of Answers: 105 Career Critical Situations. I am a business and efficiency coach that specializes in professional development, career management, time management, and work-life balance strategies.

Today we are going to talk about How to Repair a Damaged Relationship with Your Boss

Everyone wants to work well with their co-workers and boss. But sometimes it’s difficult because of personalities or the way people like to work.

Here are some different strategies to consider:

1) How can you tell if the relationship with your boss is repairable? The best way to see if the relationship can be repaired is to better
understand how you work and how your boss works. Taking a personality test like Opposite Strengths System <http://www.oppositestrengths.com>,or * Myers Briggs* personality test. <http://similarminds.com/jung.html> provides an objective and 360 degree assessment.

By understanding the different way people work and how to better relate to those personalities – you are well on your way to repairing the relationship. Since you cannot change how other people react and respond to you – you will need to be willing to make the change. If you are not willing to put in the effort, then the relationship will not change.

2) What if the relationship cannot be repaired but you don’t want to quit?
The best way to change positions within the company is to start business networking with others in the department or area that you want to move into. Start marketing your expertise in their area by volunteering your services, sending helpful articles that point to solutions or new techniques, present Brown Bag Lunch talks on topics of interest, ask to be mentored/coach by others in the other departments, take others to lunch to find out about other opportunities in their area, and schedule an appointment with your HR representative for additional ideas.

Okay – after some soul-searching; you have decided to repair the relationship. What now?

Here are some quick steps:

1) Acknowledge your part in the broken relationship. Make improvements in your performance, stay positive; don’t place him/her in difficult situations; bring solutions to problems; be open to feedback; don’t take things personally, do what you say you would do and keep him/her in the loop when you can not accomplish it and always stay calm and professional (that means no drama)

2) Understand your boss’ point of view: Go the extra mile; anticipate his/her needs; protect his/her time; and understand his/her communication preferences,

3) Focus on your shared/common goals and interests. Includes some personal interchange. Get to know them a little and give your boss the benefit of the doubt. Another good reference book is Don Ruiz book “The Four Agreements.”. This is a great personal and professional relationship manual.

4) Tommy Thomas, PhD and leader in the Opposite Strength System suggests the following: To improve your relationship with your manager, the main point to remember is to have an attitude of equality. The mistake most people make in their relationships with people they report to is that they confuse the authoritative position that the manager has in the organization with the value the manager has as a person.

So be sure to blend respect for the manager’s position and authority with conveying an attitude of equality.

The IT Professional Development Toolkit, goes into the who, what, where, when, why and how to accomplish all of the above. The IT Professional Development Toolkit is covers a comprehensive set of development tools and techniques in less than 10 minutes per practice. It contains audios, videos, articles, webinars, presentations and practice exercises designed to be less than 5-8 minutes in length. It can be used as a reference platform or a 12 week course program.

The toolkit comes in two forms: DVD and online eLearning program.

For more information about the toolkit, click on the above buttons or please go to my website at www.lauraleerose.com

For more information about Opposite Strengths System and relationships, check out Tommy’s Relationship Guide. This is a report that will give you detailed; specific coaching on how to approach your manager based on who you are and who your manager is and do so with an attitude of equality. Go to http://www.oppositestrengths.com to learn more.

Finding Time for Professional Growth

Posted on November 8, 2013 by Laura Lee Rose

Everyone is busy. But if you don’t make the time to manage your career, your career will manage you. Today’s topic is how to find time for professional development.

Most people find comfort in the idea that they:

Don’t have time for professional or career development
Too busy with daily work to focus on future paths
Company doesn’t provide the time or funds for career development
Not interested in staying at this company
Company doesn’t have any growth opportunity for me

Whether these statements are true or not, they are irrelevant.

Your career and professional development is not your company or manager’s responsibility.
Your work ‘happiness’ is not your company or manager’s responsibility.
The company is not responsible for helping you keep your job.
You are in total control of your own career, your own time management strategies, your own personal and professional development.

Both personal and professional development can be accomplished with 10 minutes a day. Audio tapes, short articles, online programs, discussion groups, pod-casts, as well as various mobile devices make it possible for you to study:

On the way to work
At your desk during a 10 minute break
Over lunch either with friends or alone
During your workout
Through a walking meditation
A 15 minutes distraction from television or video games
Standing in any type of line

Everyone has 10 minutes a day for things that are important to themselves.

Also, identify things you can blend into what you are already doing. Some examples:

At meetings, search for possible mentors, learning and even promotion opportunities
Invite mentors, coaches and possible new employers to lunch or outside event
Take notes and gather data during your normal tasks with the goal of writing and submit a white paper to a conference. While at the conference, you can participate in an abundance of other learning sessions.
Take notes at conferences so that you can easily turn them into reference materials. Share them with your team and sibling departments through lunch-bag presentations or webinars.

If you incorporate these things as you go along (with the goal of continuous learning and developing), it doesn’t really add any time to your day.

Once you clarify your professional development goals, opportunities will automatically appear. This isn’t because they magically appear out of nowhere. It’s because your vision is now clear enough to see what was always there.

But – how is the best way to recognize opportunities

Quick Tips

Event that repeats …there an opportunity there.
- Boss asks the same questions over and over again
- Clients make the same mistakes or asks the same questions
- A mistake is made – there’s a problem to solve – which means an opportunity
- Whenever you are frustrated or overwhelmed – there’s an opportunity
- Whenever you are disappointed … there is an opportunity

When you know what to look for – there are opportunities everywhere. This may bring an immediate feeling of overwhelm-ment and stagnant of indecision. Jot your opportunities down as they occur (the IT Professional Development Toolkit calls this the Parking Lot Method). Jotting them down will avoid being overwhelmed. Realize that this is merely a smorgasbord; you simply have to pick and choose.

Conclusion: Use your scheduled 10 minutes a day to fill your pipeline of knowledge.

Use your scheduled 10 minutes a day to shift and sort the opportunities that start appearing. Think about how which event can help you the most; which event you are most ready for; which event you can implement right now.

But all these things start with the desire and commitment to start. Pause for 10 minutes a day and devote that to your professional, personal and career development.

The IT Professional Development Toolkit is covers a comprehensive set of development tools and techniques in less than 10 minutes per practice. It contains audios, videos, articles, webinars, presentations and practice exercises designed to be less than 5-8 minutes in length. It can be used as a reference platform or a 12 week course program.

The IT Professional Development Toolkit, goes into the who, what, where, when, why and how to accomplish all of the above. The toolkit comes in two forms: DVD and online eLearning program.