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Streamline Training & Documentation
Streamline Training & Documentation
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Last November, I wrote about the competencies required to be licensed by the US Coast Guard for working on a tugboat. Pretty dry (no pun intended) material, but the sort of detailed technical information I like because it creates a very specific picture of the topic.
This week The New Yorker has an entire article devoted to the details of what's involved in operating a tugboat. Naturally, the story that staff writer Burkhard Bilger tells is far more colorful than a set of competency matrices. Bilger reports on one family's involvement in running tugboats over a period that dates back to the sixties, meaning he covers the time both before and after the Coast began tightening licensing requirements.
The family of Latham Smith, which now has two factions each operating its own tugboat, bases its operations in Morgan City LA. Here are some excerpts from Bilger's report, focused on the contrast between old-style and new-style tugboating:
The Smiths are from Florida originally, of Irish and British extraction, but the Cajuns have accepted them as their own. Latham is something of a legend in the towing world. When he and [first wife] Elsbeth first took to the sea, in the late sixties, they seemed like characters from a picture book: the little tugboat family, island-hopping across the Caribbean, homeschooling five children as they went. Together and separately, Latham and his children have weathered cyclones on the Atlantic, towed barges up the Amazon, and circumnavigated the globe, even as the industry around them has grown ever more regulated and safety-conscious.
. . .
"When we started out, you could do anything," Elsbeth says. "You could pick up your crew from the homeless section of the DuPont Plaza parking lot and take 'em out and sober 'em up." ... "The other tugboats, they always went for the old alkies and the deadbeat people," Elsbeth says. "We took a different approach," ... Latham took to hiring any sailor or surfer who wandered past and whose conversation he could half abide. "It was the time of the flower children, the Beatles, and the long skirts," Elsbeth says. "We found people everywhere, just everywhere — beautiful young people. These hippies would come down on a one-way ticket from Florida to Rincón, Puerto Rico, and they'd run out of money and get desperate. So we'd hire them just for the ride back to the States." ...
When regulations began to tighten, in the seventies, and a minimum of two licensed sailors were required on every tug, Latham and Elsbeth both put in for captain's licenses.
. . .
... the footloose spirit that once sent sailors to sea has been slowly starched out of the business — mostly with good reason. Beginning with the Exxon Valdez oil spill, in 1989, regulations have ratcheted up with each high-profile accident ...
Most tug captain's licenses now require at least three years' training at sea, if not a four-year degree from a maritime academy. Background checks, safety inspections, and drug and alcohol tests are mandatory, as are certifications in radar, firefighting, first aid, and social responsibility. As a result, in the past decade oil spills have decreased by more than eighty per cent compared with the nineteen-nineties, and crew fatalities and injuries have been nearly cut in half.
... the tramping days of Latham's youth, when a sailor could spend his shore leave exploring the markets of Bangkok, the bars of Panama City, are gone.
. . .
Technology has taken some of the risk out of the business. Many new tugs can be steered by joystick — though most captains disdain it — and trainees often learn to operate them on land, in mock wheelhouses surrounded by virtual harbors. (When I tried my hand at this recently at the Maritime Simulation Institute, in Middletown, Rhode Island, I spent an hour doing doughnuts in Los Angeles Harbor; I couldn't seem to stop ramming my bow into the container ship I was towing — and that was before the computer called in the heavy fog and twenty-foot seas.) But a virtual storm is still no substitute for a howling gale, or the mad tilt and groaning steel of a ship on rough seas.
If this story of one family's life in the the tugboating world appeals to you, by all means get yourself a copy of the April 19 New Yorker and read the whole thing. The entire issue is dedicated to the theme of travel, so if that's your cup of tea, you'll find other articles of interest as well. The table of contents is here.
In one handy package, Adriana Gardella provides a list of seven mistakes to avoid in a job interview, each illustrated with a telling example.
The mistakes are:
Being rude or otherwise behaving badly in front of low-level employees (e.g., the receptionist).
Telling the interviewer too much about your life circumstances, such as your medical situation or your childcare hassles.
Assuming your resume speaks for itself.
Taking phone calls and checking for incoming messages during the interview. (It's hard to believe that people actually do this, but take it from Gardella, they do.)
Suggesting that the job you're interviewing for is beneath you.
Following up on the interview too aggressively, i.e., leaving multiple messages to inquire how the company is progressing with their decision-making.
Being sloppy in the written messages you send to the prospective employer, whether through snail mail, email, text messaging, or social media such as Facebook. Always proofread before sending.
By all means, if you're in the job market, give Gardella's advisory a read because doing so can put important interviewing "don'ts" at the front of your mind.
Back on Christmas Eve, at Web Worker Daily, Meryl K. Evans published tips for putting together an effective profile on LinkedIn that are well worth your attention. By "effective," Evans means good "at attracting contacts, generating leads and showing off your skills."
Here is a somewhat abbreviated version of her tips:
Use the name that most people know you by professionally.
The photo you upload should preferably be one taken by a professional photographer.
Add an effective Professional Headline on the “Edit My Profile” page.
Pick the industry that best represents what you do. Alternatively, you could use your clients’ industry if they all come from the same one.
When entering details for your current and past positions, highlight the activities that represent what you do or want to do by mentioning them first.
Write a summary that highlights your most important business information. (Remember that you can add details under “Current Position.”)
List your web sites and blog. Rather than using the name of your web site and blog, use keywords that describe what you do.
If you have a Twitter ID, include it in your profile, along with your your Twitter name.
Request recommendations. (Writing recommendations for others can lead to reciprocal write-ups for you.)
Add LinkedIn apps to enhance your profile. For example, if you have a blog, you can use a LinkedIn app to feed your blog entries into your LinkedIn account. You can also turn LinkedIn into an online document collaboration platform.
If you tweet, send selected Twitter tweets to LinkedIn. You do this by adding the hashtag “#in” to the tweet. (Turn on this feature in Twitter Settings.)
Select what to display in your public profile, using the Public Profile options (which is also the section where you set up your Public Profile URL — http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname). The more you reveal, the easier it is for people to know if they have the right person.
Review your settings to make sure you've dealt with everything you want to adjust, including the new features and settings LinkedIn provides from time to time.
When Evans's tips were summarized at BNET.com, some helpful comments came in from readers, such as this one from merribame: "[A]nswer questions in your area of expertise. You'll gain exposure. [Also] ... ask questions — even when you know the answer. You give others a chance to enter your world with their perspective. And they'll love you for it!"
Back when I was in fourth grade, I got a homework assignment that involved writing about Abraham Lincoln. I loved Mr. Lincoln and plunged right in.
The result was a nice long text, largely cribbed from our family's encyclopedia, that I proudly showed my mother. Instead of being bowled over by my dedication and industry, she read the first few sentences and then looked at me and said, "Karen, you know, when you write something, it's supposed to be interesting."
I was mightily taken aback. The idea of being interesting had never crossed my little nine-year-old mind. However, as soon as my mother brought it up, it became firmly implanted. I've been highly conscious of the "make it interesting" criterion ever since.
This idea applies to just about everything one writes, including, for instance ... cover letters.
At the beginning of the month, Dan Heath wrote a brief column, "How Do I Make My Resume Stick?" for FastCompany.com. The whole half-page is worth reading. Let me just note his key point:
... the cover letter is the hero of our story. It's the place where you can make yourself memorable. Ideas stick because they are full of concrete details, emotion, surprises, etc.
Heath provieds a two-item checklist:
Give headlines.
Defend the headlines with stories.
Clearly, the task confronting a jobseeker trying to create a sticky cover letter / resume combo is not conceptually difficult. What's needed is plenty of practice in meeting the requirements for stickiness.
You can think of such practice as a convenient by-product of the job search process itself. The important thing is to set a firm standard for yourself of being not only responsive to individual employers' job specs, but also of presenting your match to those requirements in compelling fashion. Dashing off formulaic cover letters is not going to do make you stand out. Presenting a vivid, concise, and engaging pitch for yourself will.
Another, somewhat longer set of guidelines for making winning pitches is available in a short Hewlett-Packard Learning Center course called Marketing Writing Tips: Five Mistakes to Avoid. Though the course is addressed to product marketers rather than job seekers, much (not all) of the advice it offers is applicable to written communications with prospective employers.
There is a short section for each of the five mistakes alluded to in the course title:
Writing headlines that fail to lead (Recall that headlines are item 1 on Dan Heath's checklist.)
Taking the wrong tone (The course text reinforces Heath's advice to combine use of a prospective employer's preferred vocabulary — even if it includes buzzwords — with concrete detail concerning how you fit the employer's needs.)
Creating content without focus
Using too many words, too few details
Failing to include a clear call to action (Something to be appropriately restrained about in a cover letter to an employer.)
I'd mention that there are a couple of typos to overlook in the course text, and a quote attributed to Einstein that is usually credited to Edison, but these are minor miscues. In terms of overall quality, I rate the advice in the course as well-presented and well-modulated.
Back in June I wrote a post about David Kennedy's approach to deterring criminal offenders, who had not yet perpetrated violent crimes, from continuing their illegal activities. Now, thanks to a book review, also dating from June, I've become aware of an approach to reducing recidivism among jailed offenders that seems to be attracting increasing attention in the US after being used successfully in San Francisco since 1997.1
Schwartz is a program administrator in the San Francisco Sheriff's Department who co-founded the department's Resolve to Stop the Violence Project (RSVP), along with Assistant Sheriff Michael Marcum and Captain Rebecca Benoit.
Participants in the RSVP Expressive Arts program learn about replacing the macho image of superiority that contributed to their violent behavior, with a more humane view of the male role in society. The theater program also helps participants learn ways of expressing their feelings and needs in a nonviolent manner. (sunnyschwartz.com)
RSVP is a version of what has come to be known as restorative justice, which is most simply defined as:
all approaches to crime that attempt to do justice by repairing the harm crime causes.2
RSVP's founders made a point of designing the program based on input from an advisory committee made up of representatives of a broad cross-section of law enforcement and community stakeholders, including crime victims. The program was the 2004 recipient of the Innovations in American Government Award, presented by the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
You can get a quick overview of RSVP in the 3:08 video below.
A longer account of the program is offered in the 28:23 video below, which ran on PBS in 2005 as part of the Visionaries series hosted by Sam Waterston.
Among those interviewed are Sunny Schwartz; Michael Hennessey, Sheriff of San Francisco; Ronald Rosado, a Deputy Sheriff working in the dormitory where the RSVP program is based; George Jurand, RSVP Program Coordinator and Manager; Sheryl Corke, Principal of Five Keys Charter School (see below); Teresa Camajani, a history teacher at Five Keys; Delia Ginorio, Survivor Restoration Coordinator; and Jean O'Hara, a former Victim Impact Coordinator, who lost her daughter, son-in-law, and grandson to murder.
There is also footage of unnamed inmates participating in RSVP discussions, including a victim impact presentation by Jean O'Hara.
Using data from a two-year period beginning nine months prior to the inception of RSVP, and continuing for fifteen months after its launch, James Gilligan, then a visiting professor of psychiatry, criminology, and public policy and practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and Bandy Lee. a clinical professor of law and psychiatry at Yale, evaluated the program's effects on inmate behavior. Their hypothesis:
... the dormitory in which violence-prevention skills are taught through RSVP would create a cultural environment that would generate fewer violent incidents than the dormitory without such a programme, [which] turned out to be the case.3
The effect on the frequency with which ex-offenders were re-arrested for violent crimes was also positive: Among jail inmates who took part for a full sixteen weeks, the reduction was over 80% for the first year after release, compared to a control group of non-participants.4
Gilligan and Lee argue that
The seeds of a change in [the in-jail] culture can be seen in some of the principles that characterized the in-house version of RSVP: (1) redefining the male-role image of superiority; (2) holding oneself accountable rather than minimizing or blaming; (3) offering peer-directed guidance and having avenues for promotion; (4) verbalizing rather than acting out: (5) expressing emotions as needs; and (6) offering intimacy rather than offence. ... Finding violence to be not only an ineffectual but counterproductive means of gaining respect in [the] new culture, the inmates would quickly search for other means, which facilitated their compliance and adaptation.
I was particularly interested in the nature of the integrated pre- and post-release services provided to inmates to assist in their transition back into the community, services which bear a not surprising resemblance to those offered in various programs around the country directed at populations with employability barriers.5
The services include:
Core RSVP curriculum designed to change attitudes, beliefs and behaviors — includes male role re-education (using the Manalive curriculum), victim impact presentations, drug and alcohol recovery, theater, and release planning (further details below).6
A propos of the victim impact presentations, Gilligan and Lee comment that "we have been astonished by ... how little awareness most of these men had had as to how much power they had to hurt others, until they listened to ... victims describe their own reactions to being victimized by others." 7
Community meetings — held weekly in the RSVP dormitory to allow participants to discuss day-to-day issues they are coping with.
Loss of Innocence class — participants can explore and address trauma and victimization they experienced in childhood.
Fatherhood curriculum — a twelve-week program in which participants "discuss the father's role in a child's life, the importance of providing children with a consistent and supportive environment, and issues children face as they grow up in a single parent's home."
Young Adult class — inmates twenty-eight and under address their violence, drug dependency, and recidivism problems.
Creative writing — participants contribute to the dormitory's newsletter, with the aim of strengthening writing skills and exercising creativity.
Transfer planning — produces an exit plan spelling out the steps and tools the inmate will continue to employ in order to maintain a life free of violence and substance abuse.
The transfer planning includes plans for restoration of victims and the community. For details of RSVP's services for crime victims and survivors, see here. For services to communities, see here.
Post-release programs — designed to assist ex-offenders in maintaining behavior changes learned in the in-jail program. Include the Post-Release Education Program (PREP), which continues, at least for the first year, participation in Manalive discussion groups and weekly facilitated support groups. PREP also includes a Life Skills program with three components, the first dealing with job readiness, exploration of career opportunities, and apprenticeship programs; the second involving resume preparation and practice employment interviews; and the third covering tracking of ex-offenders' progress and ongoing support with work-related issues. Participants get counseling and support in such areass as substance abuse avoidance and parenting.
Internship Program — for select participants, a four- to six-month training program that prepares them for employment as peer counselors in the jail or at human services agencies.
Community advocacy programs — ex-offenders can give back to the community in such ways as leading Manalive groups, performing in theater programs for the public, counseling youth groups, and engaging in victim restitution programs.
I'll wrap up with a summary comment from Sunny Schwartz, et al. that indicates why emulation of RSVP elsewhere is important:
As an affirmative crime prevention tool that actively engages inmates, RSVP has been successful in giving participants, collaborators, and the community a greater understanding of the nature and dynamics of violence, including the spectrum of abusive behavior, the importance of gender-role training, the significance of learned behavior, the methods for unlearning violence, and the criminal implications and consequences of violence.8
__________ 1 Helen Epstein, "America's Prisons: Is There Hope?" The New York Review of Books, Vol. 56, No. 10 (June 11, 2009).
As an example of the spread of the RSVP program, see this report by Kate Stone Lombardi in the July 6, 2008 edition of the New York Times, which describes the introduction of the RSVP approach to Westchester County.
2Restorative Juvenile Justice: Repairing the Harm of Youth Crime, Bazemore and Walgrave (eds.) (Criminal Justice Press, 1999).
3 James Gilligan and Bandy Lee, "The Resolve to Stop the Violence Project: Transforming an In-house Culture of Violence through a Jail-Based Programme," Journal of Public Health Vol. 27, No. 2 (June 2005b), pp. 149-155.
4 James Gilligan and Bandy Lee, "The Resolve to Stop the Violence Project: Reducing Violence in the Community through a Jail-Based Initiative," Journal of Public Health, Vol 27, No. 2 (June 2005a), pp. 143-148.
5 Some of these programs have been the subject of previous posts. See here, here, here, and here.
6Sunny Schwartz, Michael Hennessey, and Leslie Levitas, "Designing: Not Business as Usual," American Jails, Jan-Feb 2005, pp. 10.
On October 2, Traci Armstrong and Tracy Coté posted at BNET.com a set of seven concrete tips "for helping hiring managers find your resume online." Anyone searching for a job would benefit from acting on this advice.
In brief:
There are a number of sites, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, where you need to establish an attractive presence. Armstrong and Cote also suggest setting up your own web page, on which you can then post your resume.
Carefully choose keywords relating to your skills, experience, and work history that match the keywords you anticipate recruiters with suitable jobs will be searching on.
Use a version of your name that is reasonably distinctive. (This particular tip is one I won't be following since I've always enjoyed having a simple name. Instead, I depend on my company name to make me stand out.)
Participate in social media interactions. Consider doing some blogging, perhaps as a guest on an established blog that's relevant to your field and interests.
If you're blogging, and you have creative work you can show off, go beyond simply demonstrating your writing skills. I.e., include photographs, illustrations, etc. Give them informative captions and suitable tags. Also, "make sure all of your digital profiles link to your blog, driving traffic to it and improving your Google ranking."
Tweet and encourage re-tweets. The more click-throughs you get, the higher your Google ranking.
Join groups. "Look for like-minded people in your industry and find ways to interact. Be open about your job seach, join discussions, answer questions and post links to valuable content ..."
The name of the game is making it highly probable that you, your resume, and samples of your work will surface when recruiters you'd like a chance to talk to are searching for promising-looking individuals to contact.
"Passion" Isn't Actually Required to do a Good Job
It was with a real sense of gratitude that I read Alina Tugend's "Shortcuts" column in today's New York Times. I have never been comfortable with the popular admonition that people should do their darndest to bring "passion" to their jobs. As I indicated in this blog's first post, I certainly agree that it's best for people to be working in jobs they truly care about, but I can't help thinking that "passion" has connotations that generally fit private life best.
Tugend's quarrel with the call for "passion" at work, is not exactly like mine. Her question is:
Are we falling into a trap of believing that our work and indeed, our lives, should always be fascinating and all-consuming? Are we somehow lacking if we're bored at times or buried under routine tasks or failing to challenge ourselves at every turn?
Following her own line of thought, Tugend goes on to discuss the ideas of various thinkers who have addressed the questions of what mental state or attitude is best suited to achieving satisfaction at work, and what employers and employees can do to encourage arriving at this preferred state.
As it turns out, the advice Tugend's informants offer is quite consonant with my own (by no means unprecendented) thought that people should aim to be employed doing something they can embrace wholeheartedly (while also recognizing that just about any job has tiresome aspects). Similarly, managers should aim to get people working on projects that particular individuals find inherently interesting and that tap the employees' strengths.
Don't be put off by the fact that 30 Ideas: The Ideas of Successful Job Search, offered by Tim Tyrell-Smith as a free download, is 114 pages long. You can pick and choose which chapters you read, and the whole thing doesn't take more than a couple of hours to get through.
I've reproduced the table of contents below, with chapters I found particularly helpful in bold.
Job Search Strategy
Do You Have A Job Search Strategy Or Are You Just Spinning?
Job Search Advice. It’s The Same Stuff We Learned As Kids
Warning! This Job Search Is Under Construction
Laid Off — Like a Tornado
10 Reasons You Should Regularly Read A Job Search Blog
Job Search Strategy: Are You The Tortoise Or The Hare?
Running Through The Pain of Job Search
I Can’t Be Out Of Leads… I Still Have Resumes Left!
On The Job Hunt? What’s Your Angle?
How To Measure The Success Of Your Job Search
The Psychology of Job Search
Landing Is For Pilots, Not Job Seekers
Out Of Work? Lucky You
The Psychology Of Job Search
Job Search… Like An Out Of Body Experience
The Worst Days During Job Search
How Irrational Fears Prevent You From Maximizing Job Search Potential
How To Avoid The Stigma Of Being Unemployed
The Danger of Being an Optimist in Job Search
The Power Of Music During Job Search
The Benefit Of A Quick Backward Glance
Smart Networking
11 Keys To Successful Job Search Networking
Tell Your Job Search Network What You Want
9 Ways To Bruise A Networking Relationship
Quick Tip — Network With Employed People
Networking Tip — Always Pay For Lunch
The #1 Networking Tool During Hard Times
Networking Events. Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
FlashCard™. Introducing A New Business Card for Networking
When Your Elevator Pitch Has A Pitch Problem
Hey, Mr. Life Of The Party. Shouldn’t You Be Networking?
Tyrell-Smith also offers eight free tools for download:
Watchlyst (.xls) A spreadsheet in which you can enter key data for jobseekers in your network (e.g., contact info, desired job function, desired industry, etc.). This provides easy reference when a job possibility comes to your attention and you want to see who in your network might be a match.
SidebySide (.xls) An organized way of comparing a job offer to the profile of your ideal new position.
SoloSheet (.doc) A one-pager that abstracts the most actionable data from your resume (e.g., your accomplishments, work philosophy, target companies, etc.) for use at networking events, with recruiters, and with fellow job seekers.
Careerback (.doc) Written in the third-person as though by a news reporter, this is a summary of your career background, a narrative of your work experience, a listing of your education, and a selection of personal details that will help a person know you better.
FlashCard (.zip) MSWord templates for the front and back of a business card specially formatted for handing out to members of your network and to recruiters. The card contains not only contact info, but also such items as the address of your LinkedIn profile, your strengths, and your career objectives.
SIP (.doc) A guide for interview preparation. For a complete explanation, see this Tyrell-Smith post.
BigPitch (.doc) A guide for preparing the 30- to 60-second introduction you'll make at networking events that include intros of those attending.
Shortcuts (.doc) Pass-along job search advice that you pull together after you've found a new job. You summarize what you learned from your job search and list the resources that were most helpful.
Job Specs for an Executive Position in Advertising
One technique I use to stay up-to-date on the requirements of various kinds of jobs is perusing position descriptions in recruitment ads. Having read a recent column by Paul Gumbinner, a recruiter in New York who specializes in helping ad agencies and companies fill executive positions, I realize how much additional detail I would be privy to if I had access to the sort of detailed job specs Gumbinner seeks from the people who engage his services.
For Gumbinner's purposes, a well-drafted job specification is "a thorough description of everything having to do with the job and the proper candidate." He offers seven tips for getting the job spec right:
Make sure the job spec contains a complete description of the duties, responsibilities and nature of the job. Include the reasons why specified skills are necessary.
State why the job is open. "Is this a new position? If so, what circumstances created the need to hire? If this is a replacement, what circumstances led to the need for change? Is the replacement an upgrade or a more junior position? What was lacking in the previous hire?"
State all requirements that go along with the job, e.g., a need to travel a certain number of days per month.
Spell out the pros and cons of the job and all the known issues the person filling the job will face.
List a candidate's likely career path, as well as the complete reporting structure associated with the job.
Explain how performance is evaluated.
Check that everyone is in agreement with the job spec. "Ever get someone completely through the interview process only to have the candidate rejected on a final interview? Don't waste that time. Make sure everyone — including the final interviewer — is in agreement with the specs."
The preceding quote captures Gumbinner's main theme: "Inarticulate job specs result in too many unqualified candidates being interviewed and leave those rejected not knowing why they were passed over." Conversely, a detailed and complete job spec "should simplify the process and make screening more efficient by providing direction for the search."
The MIT OpenCourseWare site recently added materials for a Sloan School of Management course in Communication for Managers, taught by Neal Hartman during the Fall 2008 semester.
Though the materials are not complete — lecture notes for nine of the fourteen class meetings are missing — there are a number of items that anyone interested in this particular skill area will find helpful, even if only as a refresher.
I'd suggest starting with the notes for the course wrap-up (pdf), which provide an overview of the principles Hartman emphasizes in the course:
Four types of leadership:
Visioning.
Relating.
Inventing.
Sensemaking.
How to do a situation analysis as the basis for devising a communication strategy:
Define your purpose.
Analyze your audience.
Assess your credibility.
Analyze the cultural context.
Factors to consider in deciding on your communication strategy:
Managerial style — distinguished in terms of writer/speaker control and the degree of audience involvement.
Structure of the communication — direct statement of your main points or recommendation, followed by rationale vs. indirect approach that begins with subsidiary points or with arguments that set the stage for your recommendation.
Liking — People are inclined to say yes to requests of a person they know and like.
Reciprocity — People repay in kind.
Social proof — People follow the lead of others who are similar to them.
Consistency — In response to personal and interpersonal pressure, people tend to follow through on their clear commitments.
Authority — People defer to experts.
Scarcity — Opportunities seem more valuable when their availability is limited.
The Minto Pyramid (see graphic below, which you can click to enlarge) is a good device for organizing your ideas when you are recommending a change of some sort.
Principles of effective design of visual aids:
Consistency in formatting.
Appropriate titles.
Purposeful use of color and special effects.
Clear and uncluttered layout.
Principles of effective document design:
Use of subheads to show structure.
Use of lists to highlight important and conceptually parallel information.
Use of white space to highlight material and to create transitions through indenting, columns, and lines.
In-text highlighting of key words and phrases.
Use of tables and graphs to make evidence more legible.
Principles of effective cover letters for resumes.
Importance of awareness of values and perceptions that differentiate cultures around the world.
Earlier this month Matthew Rothenberg published an excellent summary of five mistakes to avoid when formatting your resume. It will only take you a moment to read Rothenberg's piece. Here's a preview of the five "Don'ts" he highlights:
Don't make your resume too long and/or use type and margins that are too small.
Don't overuse bullets.
Don't stick too rigidly to listing your career history and accomplishments in chronological order.
Don't include pictures, and don't use PDF format (do use MSWord).
Don't choose a poorly formatted filename.
(Do use something along these lines for, say, a Logistics Manager position: John-Doe-Resume-Logistics-Manager.doc.)
You can find a variety of "Do's" for your resume at TheLadders, the online job site where Rothenberg is editorial director.
The June 2009 issue of the American Economic Review has a notable article by Gary Charness (University of California - Santa Barbara) and Marie-Claire Villeval (University of Lyon, France) that offers evidence that older workers, on average, are no worse than younger workers in terms of cooperativeness, competitiveness, and acceptance of risk. In fact, Charness's and Villeval's evidence suggests that older workers tend to perform better than younger workers when team cooperation is needed.
Charness and Villeval summarize their findings as follows:
Our results show first that seniors [defined as workers over 50] are more cooperative than juniors [defined as workers under 30], in the sense of making more contributions to team production. Second, we see no evidence at all that seniors are more risk averse in financial decisions. Third, seniors react to incentives and the competitiveness of the environment about as strongly as juniors. These three results are found in both the field and laboratory environments. Finally, we observe beneficial effects in the field from having working groups in which there is a mix of juniors and seniors, since working seniors increase their contribution when they know they are interacting with juniors; this suggests that there are indeed benefits in maintaining a work force with diversity in age. In addition, workers at the two firms in our study reveal a preference for being in age-heterogeneous groups. Overall, the implication is that it may not be wise to exclude seniors from the labor force; instead, defining additional short-term incentives near the end of a worker's career to retain and to motivate older workers may provide great benefits to society.
Of course, this research comes with caveats concerning its generalizability (e.g., only workers at two French companies were involved in the field portion of the research). Nevertheless, the statistical significance Charness and Villeval found suggests organization managers would be well-advised to give open-minded consideration to the potential older workers have to make substantial contributions to meeting organizational goals.
In today's Wall Street Journal, Joann Lublin has an article about the more numerous and more challenging hoops that some companies are having job seekers jump through in today's environment of relatively high unemployment.
Aside from the useful information in the article itself, Lublin points toward some further material elsewhere on the Internet that job seekers can consult to prepare themselves for a relatively demanding hiring process.
Of particular interest to me was the practice case study that Capital One has posted at their website to help applicants prepare for the actual case study discussion that is part of Capital One's hiring process "for all on-campus recruiting and analyst applicants, as well as for some management and information technology applicants," assuming the applicant gets past initial screening.
The case study sets up a problem, which happens to involve cross-selling a product from a third-party vendor, and then asks the applicant "to determine what are the most important factors that will help you decide to accept or reject" this particular cross-sell opportunity.
A model response is provided, followed by further details that enable the applicant to assess the potential profitability of the opportunity, taking into account such important considerations as mark-up over the vendor's wholesale price and marketing costs for Capital One.
The case study is well-presented and admirably concise. It's well worth a look, whether or not you're in the job market, because it provides good reminder of some fundamental business concepts, such as cost analysis, competitive analysis, opportunity cost, breakeven point, and systems thinking.
The wikiHow site is a trove of how-to articles on a wide range of subjects:
Arts & Entertainment
Cars & Other Vehicles
Computers & Electronics
Education & Communications
Family Life
Finance & Business
Food & Entertaining
Health
Hobbies & Crafts
Holidays & Traditions
Home & Garden
Personal Care & Style
Pets & Animals
Philosophy & Religion
Relationships
Sports & Fitness
Travel
Work World
wikiHow (e.g., how to contribute)
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I find wikiHow useful for browsing for ideas on how to handle various situations, such as preparing for a behavioral interview (one of the items cited below), and for advice that reflects "on the ground" experience.
The articles vary in quality, as you would expect, but they are also easy to scan, so you can quickly decide what you want to pay attention to, and what you want to ignore.
I've listed below some examples of articles I found useful, taken from the Education & Communication, Finance & Business, and Work World categories.
Carrying on the theme of a recent post — preparing for job transitions — I'd mention another compilation of helpful advice, in this case recommendations for how best to use LinkedIn.
It is apparent from the reader comments that Swearingen's article attracted that I am not alone in finding it valuable. And some commenters add links to further tips, such as here.
21st Century Journalism XXXIV: If Layoffs Loom ...
Unfortunately, nowadays there are scores of newspaper people being laid off, so guidance on how to cope with looming and actual job loss is certainly timely.
In January, the Poynter Institute posted a two-part "Journalist's Survival Guide." Part 1 had tips for "What to Do Before the Ax Falls," and Part 2 continued with "What to Do When the Ax Falls." These concise, practical recommendations were compiled by a group of 14 laid-off journalists who back in November attended the first of a planned series of "Standing Up for Journalism" seminars at Poynter.
The idea was to share with colleagues in the profession insights concerning "what we wished we'd known before we lost out jobs, how we wished we'd prepared for life outside the Mother Ship." Though the tips and advice are targeted specifically to journalists, they can serve as guidance for just about anyone wanting to be prepared for transitioning to a new job.
I've been following Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, for some time (though I don't yet haunt anyone on Twitter, including Hsieh), most recently here.
I've now had the chance to watch the two-part YouTube video of the talk Hsieh gave on March 14 at the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin and it's another keeper. As one commenter at YouTube puts it,
"Culture drives the brand". "Chase the vision". What an excellent way to run a company! We can all learn a lot from the Zappos example.
Part I . . .
Part II . . .
Hsieh's slides are available here. An audio podcast is here.
O*NET Online, the application for the general public that facilitates access to the O*NET database, provides an overview of specific ways in which employers, employees, and job seekers can use O*NET's rich compilation of occupational information.
Employers can use O*NET occupational information to:
Develop job descriptions
Expand the pool of qualified applicants for open positions
Define employee and job-specific success factors
Align organizational and employee development efforts with the organization's needs
Refine recruitment and training goals
Design effective compensation and promotion systems
Employees and job seekers — on their own, or with the help of vocational and career counselors — can use O*NET occupational information to:
Find out which jobs fit with their interests, skills, and experience
Explore growth career profiles using the latest available labor market data
Research a targeted job and related occupations to learn what is needed for success
Maximize earning potential and job satisfaction
O*NET offers several self-assessment tools for those exploring career possibilities:
O*NET Interest Profiler (paper-based and online) — see footnote 2 in yesterday's post.
O*NET Ability Profiler — measures nine work-related abilities: Verbal Ability, Arithmetic Reasoning, Computation, Spatial Ability, Form Perception, Clerical Perception, Motor Coordination, Finger Dexterity, and Manual Dexterity.
People can use these tools "to make a seamless transition from assessing their interests, work values, and abilities to matching their job skills with the requirements of occupations in their local labor market."
I would mention that when I experimented with the O*NET Skills Search tool, I did not find it very helpful for homing in on occupations that were actually appealing to me. I ended up with long lists of often-unsuitable occupations.
The Tools and Technology Search seems more helpful. It lets you search for high-demand occupations that make use of tools (e.g., machine tools, MSExcel, CAD software, etc.) that you are already proficient in or intend to learn.
Once you have identified occupations for which you want additional information (see yesterday's post), you have a choice of three types of report providing information about each occupation on your list. You can save the occupational information in the reports for easy use in word processing, spreadsheet, and database progarams.
The three types of reports are:
Summary Report — provides an overview of the selected occupation, focusing on the most important descriptors. At the end of the report, there is a list of related occupations, and a summary of trends in wages and employment at both the national and state levels.
As an example, you can look at the Summary Report for Training and Development Specialists here. It's about six pages long.
Details Report — displays all descriptors for the selected occupation. For certain descriptors (namely, Tasks,1 Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Work Activities, Work Context, Interests,2 Work Values, and Work Styles) the report also shows a rating of how important each descriptor is to the occupation. As with the Summary Report, the Details Report includes a list of related occupations, and a summary of trends in wages and employment at the national and state levels.
As an example, you can look at the Details Report for Training and Development Specialists here. It's about seventeen pages long.
Custom Report — allows you to select from sixteen different content areas to generate a report with just the information you want for the selected occupation. For certain descriptors, you can also select the scale to display and minimum cutoff scores.3
As an example, you can look at the Custom Report menu for Training and Development Specialists here.
__________ 1 There are two categories of tasks. Core tasks are critical to the occupation. Supplemental tasks are less relevant and/or important to the occupation.
2The O*NET Occupational Interest descriptor is based on J.L. Holland's R-I-A-S-E-C Interest Structure, which you can read about in Module 3 (pdf) of the O*NET Career Exploration Tools Facilitator's Guide. R-I-A-S-E-C stands for Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional occupational interests, as outlined below.
People with Realistic interests like work activities that include practical, hands-on problems and solutions; enjoy dealing with plants, animals, and real world materials like woods, tools, and machinery; enjoy outside work; and often do not like occupations that mainly involve doing paperwork.
People with Investigative interests like work activities that have to do with ideas and thinking more than with physical activity; and like to search for facts and figure out problems mentally rather than to persuade or lead people.
People with Artistic interests like work activities that deal with the artistic side of things, such as forms, designs, and patterns; like self-expression in their work; and prefer settings where work can be done without following a clear set of rules.
People with Social interests like work activities that assist others and promote learning and personal development; prefer to communicate more than to work with objects, machines, or data; and like to teach, give advice, help, or otherwise be of service to people.
People with Enterprising interests like work activities that have to do with starting up and carrying out projects, especially business ventures; like persuading and leading people and making decisions; like taking risks for profit; and have a bias for action (as opposed to ruminating).
People with Conventional interests like work activities that follow set procedures and routines; prefer working with data and detail rather than with ideas per se; prefer work in which there are precise standards rather than work in which you have to judge things yourself; and like working where the lines of authority are clear.
O*NET provides an Interest Profiler that people exploring career possibilities can use for self-assessment. The online version of the Interest Profiler is here.
3 Ratings and standardized scores are provided for Tasks, Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Work Activities, Work Context, Occupational Interests, Work Values, Work Needs, and Work Styles.
An option to view scale anchors (verbal definitions of high, medium, and low numeric values on the O*NET scale for a particular descriptor) is available for four descriptors: Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Work Activities. It is a good idea to select "Show scale anchors" for each of these descriptors that you include in your Custom Report because this helps clarify the descriptor's needed level for the selected occupation. An example of a a set of scale anchors is here.
Browse by Job Family — Displays groups of occupations that are similar in terms of the work performed and the skills, education, training, and credentials required. The specific families are:
Architecture and Engineering
Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance
Business and Financial Operations
Community and Social Services
Computer and Mathematical
Construction and Extraction
Education, Training, and Library
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry
Food Preparation and Serving Related
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical
Healthcare Support
Installation, Maintenance, and Repair
Legal
Life, Physical, and Social Science
Management
Military Specific
Office and Administrative Support
Personal Care and Service
Production
Protective Service
Sales and Related
Transportation and Material Moving
Browse by High-Growth Industry (In-Demand Industry Cluster) — Displays occupations in industries that are economically important, projected to add substantial numbers of new jobs, or are being transformed by technological change and innovation. The currently listed high-growth/in-demand clusters (some of which seem out-of-date) are:
Advanced Manufacturing
Aerospace
Automotive
Biotechnology
Construction
Education
Energy
Geospatial Technology
Health Care
Homeland Security
Hospitality
Information Technology
Nanotechnology
Retail
Transportation
Other
Browse by O*NET Descriptor — O*NET Descriptors are categories of occupational information — Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Work Activities, Interests, and Work Values. Each descriptor contains more specific elements. For example, Knowledge includes such elements as Administration & Management, Chemistry, Production & Processing, etc.
Browse by Job Zone — Displays occupations in five categories based on ascending levels of education, experience, and training needed. the five Job Zones are:
Little or no preparation needed
Some preparation needed
Medium preparation needed
Considerable preparation needed
Extensive preparation needed
Browse by STEM Discipline — Displays occupations that require education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The specific STEM disciplines O*NET breaks out are:
Chemistry
Computer Science
Engineering
Environmental Science
Geosciences
Life Sciences
Mathematics
Physics/Astronomy
Browse by Career Cluster Displays occupations in a particular cluster or field of work that require similar skills. The sixteen career clusters are:
Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources
Architecture & Construction
Arts, Audio/Video Technology & Communications
Business, Management & Administration
Education & Training
Finance
Government & Public Administration
Health Science
Hospitality & Tourism
Human Services
Information Technology
Law, Public Safety & Security
Manufacturing
Marketing, Sales & Service
Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
Transportation, Distribution & Logistics
Once your search has led you to occupations of interest, you can generate reports for each occupation at differing levels of detail. The O*NET reports will be the subject of tomorrow's post.
