What is Job Search Research and Why is it Important?

Posted on August 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

If I told you that in order to develop a useful career plan or job search strategy, you would have to do some research, what picture might show up in your mind’s eye?  A visit to several databases, a trip to the bookstore or library, a day with a search engine?  Research is how you get answers to your questions, so you need the questions first.  Your questions might be big and fact-oriented (What is the size of ABC’s primary market?), or simple and relationship-based (Would I like working at XYZ?).  Either way, asking questions and finding out the answers keeps you from misleading yourself by making wrong assumptions.

You can research from at least two directions:  1.) What are characteristics of/facts about the company I’m considering, and 2.) What are characteristics of/facts about me that would affect my job or career there?

Questions about the company to which you might want answers:

What business is the company in? Looks simple and straightforward, but isn’t.  I once worked for a medical device company, but not that many of the folks I interviewed for jobs there knew a.) what that was, and b.) why it was important.  Do you?  Many industries are regulated, and that limits their choices about marketing, sales, and accounting, among other things.  Your interview performance may depend on knowing why this company does things the way it does.

Is the company a division or subsidiary of a larger company?  If so, where are the headquarters and what is the operating strategy? Your day to day life is heavily influenced by this piece of info.  If you were the top accounting dog at your last company and this looks like that job but at the division level, you might check into that.  Matrix structures. . . .reporting relationships. . . . all give new meaning to who really provides your performance feedback, if any.  And, your interviewer will be looking to see how your past reporting relationships will fit into their structure.

What constitutes financial health for this company? I keep hearing, for example,  that many new entrants into the unemployed or soon to be unemployed ranks declare that they are ready to “give back” and put their for-profit skills to work in the nonprofit arena.  I can assure you that nonprofit companies are complex, under-resourced, and on most days,  competitive places to work.  “No margin, no mission” is both overused and underapplied.  And, a lot of nonprofits are government contractors in disguise, with important regulatory obligations, thin contract margins, and a scary amount of direct responsibility for human lives.  How your target company earns its organizational living, in detail, is not a small matter.  Who pays for the product or service is material to the organization’s well-being.

What is it like to work there? This is one that I should have asked, more than once.  And, it’s the one I always told the candidates the truth about (especially those about to plunge into a difficult or crisis situation).  If you get different answers from different sources, find out why.  If universally, your sources say exactly the same thing, check the web site for the source of the Kool-Aid they drank, or the spin.  If there is spontaneity and joy in the source, press for the reasons.

Those are questions about the company.  What about you?  What do you need to know–not just affirm–about yourself?

Who are you? Just like a company has a brand, a leader, and a plan to deliver a product or service, so should you.  Know your value and be specific about what you really want in return for your efforts.  What is important to you will come through your interactions and priorities every day; plan for a good fit, not a forced march.

What do you want to do each and every day? Jobs have to give something back at regular intervals, not once every few months or so.  The hours you spend on the job have to provide you with some kind of satisfaction.  It’s one thing to be a teacher, another to actually get to teach every day.  If you don’t like negotiating, don’t go into human resources.  It’s all those folks really do (IMHO, sorry, friends, it’s just the way I see it).  If airports, cars and hotels aren’t your favorite hangout, don’t ignore the fact that the job is 75% travel–that’s three full weeks a month.

How much feedback do you need and want? Do you want other people to like and admire you or are you more about results. . . and do you realize that the two might be mutually exclusive?  If you are hungry for recognition, you might be more short term oriented, as an example of the importance of the question.  Do not fool yourself into thinking that this is not material.  Your expectations around rewards and recognition are powerful forces in your work life.

What makes you happy? For some people, this might be as simple as summers off with the kids not in school.  For others, it’s as complex as saving a corner of the world, a life, or a million dollars to spend on a cool retirement.  Whatever it is for you, be sure that whatever you do is going to get you there–if not now, then somewhere along the line.

Research–like everything else–can’t live just in your head.  Document your questions, and add the answers or working hypotheses as you come upon them.  You won’t be tempted to gloss over a truth just because you wish it weren’t true, if you pursue the answers to your questions in an objective way.  Building a plan for a good career or getting a good job is not a matter of luck; it’s a process of learning, growing, and strengthening your value.

Next time:  Research Methods

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Organizing Yourself

Posted on August 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

Regardless of your age, capacity for remembering important details, or improvisational skills, there are cardinal rules for career plan organization and  management.  They are:

1.  Your written and detailed strategic career plan must have at least two homes: a digital home (on your hard drive, with back ups, a cd, a zip drive, or an online venue of your choice) and a paper version, in a binder or organizer file.  You will need access at times when you are not plugged in, I promise you.  You can ask someone whose name you can’t quite connect to the right opportunity or company to wait while you reach for the binder and turn to the right page, but you cannot ask someone to wait while your Office 2007 fires up and runs the antivirus software you have set to automatic.

2.  Date and time stamp everything you do.  I mean that figuratively, of course, but you can do it with electronic and digital media and you should do it with the notes you write by hand while on the phone or in a meeting.  Write the date and time on everything, or attach something with the date and time on it if you don’t want to violate or make a mark on an original document.

3.  Do not play with your computer or other digital or electronic stuff while talking to anyone about anything.  It’s tempting to take notes while interviewing or networking.  It’s fine to write them longhand.  But tapping on your keyboard, while it may seem efficient to you, is very different from an open pad and pencil or pen on the table.  For one thing, your guest can’t reach for it and say, here, let me write down a few names and phone numbers for you, or let me sketch that out, or here’s the map.   Second, it’s not clear what you are doing and it has an unpleasantly isolating effect.  If you are both tapping, it’s just weird.

4.  Just like you pay your bills on the same day of the month, or review your budget, or call your family, or go to yoga class, you have to make time for your goals and to do lists.  You can’t do the audit checklist once and walk away.  Even if you don’t have time to revise, even if you just want time to think through a passing encounter with an ambiguity or anomaly you just thought of, you have to go there.  Make a note.

5.  You must have an organized workspace in your home.  If your home is 300 square feet and you share it, you still have to have a few square feet—it might do double duty—where you store, review, and update your plan, and ponder the possibilities.  Place is a powerful and important trigger for ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

6.  Don’t bring your career plan to work.  I’m pretty sure this requires no explanation or elaboration, but here it is anyhow.  Sharply separate, physically and administratively, your present circumstances and your future prospects, simply because it is the right thing to do.   But, you say, the recruiter (my friend, my mentor, the names sourcer, the president of the company I really want to work for) called me (or emailed me) at work.  No—you happened to be at work when they called you.  You may now say, “What is a good time for us to reschedule this conversation?”  It is never ever appropriate to take yourself and your cell phone or Blackberry outside and return the call from the sidewalk.  Please. The same principle applies to texting or emailing from work or a work-related activity.  It is not done that way.

7.  Do not fib or lie, about anything.  It is not worth it.  It sticks to you and makes you feel bad.  Then, it makes you look stupid, which is almost as bad.

8.  Thank people a lot, much, much more than you think is enough.

9.  Remember things.  Especially little things about other people.  That’s why we write them down.

10.  Take time off from thinking about and acting on your career.  Go away from it, take your focus elsewhere for a time—scheduled by you, for as long as you feel you need.  But write a goal on that subject and schedule your timely return, and resume your progress.

Remember–whatever it is, it isn’t real unless it is written somewhere.  The things that live their whole lives in your head are just dreams.

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Summer Networking–What Not to Wear

Posted on August 18, 2010 | 2 comments

Not long ago, I dashed out of the office for an afternoon meeting that I’d almost forgotten.  As many of us do, I’d dressed for a day of writing, phone calls, and stuff like that.  Not a quick meeting with friends working on an event, for sure.  I wore linen.

So when I ran into the room to see my neatly pressed professional friends, I could hardly miss the fact that I was wrinkled, deeply wrinkled, from head to toe in a linen pants suit (check: linen pants, linen jacket, linen blouse, yep, head to toe).  It didn’t quite look like pajamas—it was taupe—but I did look like I’d been sleeping in it.

When is it networking and not just an errand?  Always, when you are making or trying to make connections that might lead to a professional opportunity.   If you are an artist, looking for an artist job, you might look seriously artistic dressed in paint-stained clothes.  But if the job ever involves presentations to someone’s clients, you won’t look sensible; you want to blend in a little, even if your work stands out a lot.

Here are some basic dress rules for summer networking success:

1.  As I may have said, avoid the Full Blown Linen look.  Scrunch wrinkles look bad on everyone, distractingly so (worse on men, though).  Tropicals are for vacation.

2.  Flip-flops are for the beach.  In general, sandals are riskier than you think.

3.  Sleeveless, men or women: Sorry, NO.  Strapless: NO!  For those who will offer me an issue of a current and reliable fashion magazine containing an article on what to wear to work that shows an actual picture of a sleeveless top: 1.) Once you have the job, do what you think is right, based on what you see around you, and 2.) Magazines rely on ads, the fashion industry relies on profits, and clothes without sleeves are less expensive to manufacture.

4.  Jewelry should be minimized and should not distract.  I once wore three or four inexpensive strands of large beads wound around my neck to a meeting of a networking group.  Fashionable, absolutely (and really cute).  Sensible for the occasion, not so much; it was a bad decision.  You don’t want comments on your jewelry, period, men or women.  Leave all expensive jewelry in a safe somewhere.  Wear earrings or a bracelet, pearls or a ring.  If you have a big honking engagement ring, good for you, but you would be amazed at the ridiculous people who believe that suggests you won’t need to work once you are married.  And, if you are married, the plain band is a safer choice.

5.  Wear a plain, basic watch.  A watch is not jewelry for this purpose.

6.  Hosiery.  Well, now.  After my first August in the Sunshine State I discarded all hosiery except opaque hose, which I wear with flats instead of boots on the coldest days of winter.  But I don’t recommend abstinence from hose for anyone seeking employment.  Many, many employers don’t want to see bare legs and feet on men or women, so I don’t recommend taking the risk until you are on a payroll.  With your suits and dresses, wear nude hose (I know that every fashion editor from here to Seattle is shuddering), which means closed toe shoes, because open toed shoes with hose is just wrong.  (Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, is from Clearwater, and invented the original footless Spanx prototype out of her determination to have her hose and wear her mules and sandals correctly, too.)  Men—black socks or socks that match your trousers.

7.  Handbag (if any): small, plain, shoulder bag, or briefcase style shoulder bag—because you want hands free for handshaking.  Stay uncluttered; if you have to rummage for a business card you look unprepared and disorganized.  Your wallet should be plain and simple and well-organized.  I was once interviewed by a woman who pulled out her wallet to pay for lunch and I immediately heard an alarm go off in my head.  It was pink (I think) scuffed and bulging, filled with junk and random photos, notes, and dirty dog-eared cards.  If she’d extracted a hundred dollar bill to give me I’d have hesitated before touching it.

8. Men and women, if it is 96 degrees and a hundred percent humidity, remember the building will still be air conditioned.  Yes, wear the jacket.  Women, you can indeed wear a dress (with sleeves) with nothing over it.

9.  Men—ties for professional events, with a long-sleeved shirt in white, blue, or a pinstripe.   I personally believe undershirts are a wise choice but not everyone agrees with me and that’s okay.  If you are the guy in the polo shirt, the tropical print, or the guayabera everyone will think you are retired.

10.  Hair:  kempt.  I’m a student of the Diversity School of Hair Discussions, so I believe this is a cultural thing, as are tattoos, and I’m going to resist the temptation to be critical of hair.  If you are a woman, a ponytail is the equivalent of rolled up sleeves (as if to get to work), and if you have long hair, looks neater (assuming it is a neat ponytail) than long, stringy, frizzy, or poorly cut hair.   Short, neat hair looks efficient, for both men and women.  That said, I’d make sure it is mostly the same color, a color that real hair might be (i.e. not green) and that it appears to have been attended to with a comb within the last day or so.  Keep up to date with your haircut.

Last piece of advice, really.  Do not wear cologne; limit yourself to a small amount of scented lotion for women; a tiny pat of aftershave for men, and don’t reapply it at any time during the day.  I guarantee that your networking opportunity will be shortened in direct proportion to the distaste that your companion(s) have for your splash of Shangri-Lalala.  Taste in scents is very personal and allergies are widespread. I once rode on a convention outing bus for what seemed like centuries.  My seatmate was wearing Eau de God-Knows-What, applied with a heavy hand between the day-long program and the dinner out in the middle of nowhere.  By the time we “landed” I had a blazing headache and could not run fast enough or far enough or gasp enough fresh air.  Don’t be that seatmate.

One last story.  I was recently asked to lunch by a young woman whose job search was not going well.  I was astonished when she arrived with wet hair, dressed in shorts and flip-flops, a bathing suit under her parachute silk parka.  “Coming from or headed to the beach?”  I asked.  “Maybe this isn’t a good time?” (thinking how hard it would be to coach someone with her head in the sand). “Nope,” she said, “I wouldn’t dress like this for a meeting, of course.”  Really; what is this if not meeting?  If I hook her up with a contact will she show up appropriately attired or decide it isn’t a real meeting?

Let’s be clear.  For now, they are all meetings.  Anyone who can connect you to an opportunity might as well be conducting an interview: he or she can choose you to help and support, or choose someone else.  That’s the name of the game when opportunities are in short supply and people who need them are plentiful.

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Career Advancing Things to Do Indoors in the Heat of the Summer

Posted on July 30, 2010 | Leave a comment

Honestly, it’s too hot to do much of anything, isn’t it?  But, if you are looking for a job or if you have a job and you are looking for a different one, you don’t want to slow your momentum just because it’s July.  It is true that lots of people you would otherwise be meeting with are on vacation.  Interview schedules are dragging way out because of vacations, and if you are in the south, the oil spill may have everyone holding a collective breath.  In general summer makes things slow down.

So take your plans indoors, or if you aren’t air conditioned, to an indoor venue where you can work on your search.  Here are some basics that will keep you from having to start all over in a few months:

1.  Reorganize yourself and create a re-launch strategy for yourself.  Gather your cards, files, notes, telephone logs, articles, and the other collectibles you have been neglecting and sort.  Once Sorting is done: Pitch what is begging to be pitched–and that includes ideas that didn’t work or never got off the ground.  If you didn’t make the call or write the letter three months ago, either do it today, do it tomorrow, or give it up.  But somewhere in that pile o’ stuff is a good idea, an inspiration, or a sudden “what the heck” that can re-invigorate.

2.  Build a plan around the heat of July and August–set a schedule for the rest of the summer–what to do each day until fall arrives.  See how long you can stick to it.

3.   Update your research.  Either go to the library or go online and see what is going on with your target companies and their hiring plans or marketing strategy.  Changes might mean opportunity.

4.  Start your blog.  Begin by beginning.  You can spend a few days on this–did you have anything else to do, really?

5.  Write an article about something current in your profession or about your professional interest.  Even if it isn’t a great effort, spend some time learning about where you might publish it, if you ever wanted to.  Edit it.

6.  Write some letters or emails getting back in touch with your friends.  Or buy some cards and write personal notes to folks who might welcome them.

7.  Update your online profiles–Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever your preference.  New photo, new status update, whatever is new.  It’s time to refresh.

8.  Get a haircut.  You know you need one.

9.  Read a good book that is related to your professional field or one that you aspire to.

10.  Write down your new re-launch plan.  If it isn’t written, it isn’t real.  If it doesn’t have goals and a timeline, it isn’t likely to get done.

I’m sure I’m not the only grown-up who still thinks that September is the start of a whole new year.  Old habits and perceptions don’t really leave us–new school clothes, pencils, notebooks and a lunchbox marked a new opportunity to achieve.  So start your homework now. . . . .

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The Importance of Cover Letters

Posted on June 12, 2010 | Leave a comment

The June issue of Inc. magazine contains a great article by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals and co-author of Rework.  Fried and the hiring managers at 37 Signals ignore resumes, maintaining that “Resumes reduce people to bullet points, and most people look pretty good as bullet points.”  I’d add that most bullet points look alike, since there’s a limited supply of action verbs that can be used on a resume, and only so many relevant things in a job or a company that you could have done by yourself. You’d be surprised at how obsolete those things look after a few short years, too.

But, says Fried, “Cover letters say it all.  They immediately tell you if someone wants this job or just any job.” Yes, I say, yes!   And therein lies the magic of career planning.  It helps you identify and intelligently and confidently communicate what you want, why you want it, and what you offer in return for the opportunity you seek.

If you don’t know anything about a company, you can’t write a cohesive letter explaining why you want to join it.  And as for the sadly shallow advice to parrot the bullet points in a job posting with your own bullet-pointed section illustrating you’ve “been there, done that,” how many of those letters do you think might be sitting in that file?

A career planner doesn’t wait for the posting. If you know what you want, why wait passively for some sort of perverse permission to ask for it?  If you don’t know what you want, how can you make a good case for yourself as the best candidate for anything?

Fried doesn’t hire people when 37 Signals doesn’t have a need to fill, and 37 Signals doesn’t go looking for new needs in order to justify a hire.  But clearly when it’s time to hire, they think through the offering that shows who has been readying himself or herself for such a career opportunity.

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“The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered.” Why?

Posted on June 6, 2010 | 1 comment

I read Laura Bassett’s recent post on The Huffington Post with great interest.  It was only a few days ago that I advised someone who is in a period of extended unemployment to relax: there’s plenty of company in that boat, and employers are generally pragmatic.  My bigger concern would be getting a fair shake during salary negotiations, when the assumption is that a lowball salary offer is better than none.

However, it appears that some employers are unabashedly posting warnings on their job board postings that they will not—or their client will not—consider candidates not currently working.  I’m going to skip over the part where I would otherwise say that this isn’t necessarily true: “Do Not Believe Everything You Read on a Job Board” is begging to be blogged.  And I’m going straight to the real reasons for the apparently short-sighted and heartless warning.

  1. The search firm that is usually behind the “anonymous client” doesn’t look very helpful if all they can come up with are unemployed candidates that are already in the client’s database.  Search firms profess to have access to special candidates who are not in the market.  Producing those gets them paid; producing slates full of unemployed people doesn’t.  I’ll go further.  While big companies can usually put spider technology to work ferreting out the qualified from all the others, smaller search firms and placement firms are less likely to have such sophisticated and expensive tools.  So they just tell you to keep your material to yourself.
  2. The search firm—or HR department—may not be able to deliver candidates who are actively in the job market. The length of time it takes a company to get from one end of an assignment (approval of the position) to the other (new incumbent start date) is, at times, too long to sustain the average unemployed candidate who wants to work NOW.  The end client is the actual department where the job gets done, and neither the search recruiter nor the HR staff likes to look ineffective, as they do when the top candidate evaporates in mid-stream.  Ergo, a preference for the passive job seeker, which is what everyone who isn’t unemployed can be called.
  3. Unemployed job applicants hit the send button a lot.  Often, they know little or nothing about the company, business unit, market, brand, profession, or job.  This doesn’t make them insincere or any less capable, but it sometimes makes them seem less prepared.  I’ve been unemployed and I’ve been that candidate.  Unlike the candidate for whom the advertised job is a carefully contemplated career move, the job for me (after a few months of pavement-pounding) was more of a commodity, a lifeline, or a two-year gig in which I might wait out the economy. I wasted a lot of HR folks’ time before I wised up.

In short, it’s not a matter of candidate qualifications, as usual.  It’s a matter of job-seeking behavior—the politics of the process, amplified and placed front and center.   When you lob your resume over the transom, which is what job board recruiting encourages and what you should not do, you lose control of your image, your brand, and your fate.  That’s why you feel bad, when you read in the Huff Post that these meanies don’t want you, just because you don’t have a job.

In Bassett’s article she quotes various HR folks who maintain that it’s a skill set issue, that it takes a lot of time and HR-power to sort through the files, and yada yada.  That’s HR speak for “we do it because we can and because we want to.”  And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, unless, as Bassett hints at, the employer is perpetuating illegal discrimination.  I don’t think it’s good HR policy, but that’s just my opinion.

Here’s the rest of what I think:  if you are unemployed (or even if you are employed, actually), you shouldn’t be blindly throwing your resume (your surrogate self, if you spent any time at all crafting it) at lines and names on a job board, anyway.  You should be spending your time cultivating contacts at the companies and in the communities where you want to work.  Your resume is not even relevant to your friends and contacts until you are asked to supply it specifically to someone who can get you into a conversation with a decision-maker.  If you read on a job board that there is an opening you want, go looking for someone who can help you pursue it.

The purpose of a posting on a job board is multifold—but no one should regard it as an invitation to apply.  It is first and foremost an artifact of an administrative system which serves the HR department or equivalent, an announcement that a position is open, a listing of job requirements so that all employees and all others can see what the incumbent will do or be expected to do, and finally, evidence that a company can rely on that shows it notified everyone who might have interest that it intended to fill that job.  An invitation would be more . . . inviting.

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Ten Big Mistakes

Posted on May 7, 2010 | Leave a comment

What can go wrong?  You know by now that nearly everything has potential for trouble.  The biggest mistake of all is underestimating exactly that.  Strategic errors are the ones that will nail you; here are the big ones that you should take steps to avoid:

  1. Choosing the wrong friends.  Basically, your friends are the core of your network; choose corrupt, lazy, heartless, or even just irresponsible friends and you are taking yourself in the opposite direction of a solid career foundation.  Play with good citizens and nice people.
  2. Staying in one limited circle or venue.  I don’t mean just one group of people—I mean having too few interests and too limited a set of skills.  Think George Clooney in Up In the Air for an extreme example.
  3. Avoiding risk.  Nothing is perfect and you can’t learn and grow if you don’t fail.  You have to try things in order to find out what you are good at and what you aren’t.
  4. Avoiding self-awareness.  It’s important to know yourself and therefore understand others.  If you don’t know who you are, you can’t really communicate what you need.
  5. Using people.  I mean in a bad way.  It’s one thing to take advantage of a relationship by mutual understanding and agreement; it’s another to exploit a person for what he or she can do for you.
  6. Failing to deal with addiction.  You know who you are; it will catch up to you.    Probably when you aren’t expecting it.  Get help.
  7. Holding a grudge.  Are you kidding?  Who cares about your drama?  Grudge-nurturing is energy consuming and corrosive.  Paybacks are. . .not attractive.
  8. Going it alone.  Career management is a group activity and you need a cadre of advisors, an inner circle of other people who are there for you.
  9. Lying.  About anything.  Dishonesty is what it is; there aren’t times when a misrepresentation is acceptable and other times when it isn’t.  Tact is one thing, out and out bull is another.
  10. Indulging your self at the expense of others.  This takes many forms and overlaps a fair number of mistakes, but is worth noting.  If you put the needs of others on your radar and find ways to support the people around you, energy comes back to you.  If you think too much about you, everyone will realize you don’t need help. . . . .

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Law Career Planning

Posted on April 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

I believe that like many professions, the practice of law is a calling, of sorts.  The last time I took the LSAT (yes, more than once) I understood immediately that it was not my calling; I won’t bore you with the details.  If it happens to be your calling, know that getting a job as a lawyer is very different from getting into law school.  You should begin the search for the right position on the day you get accepted into law school.

From that point on, your objective is the job in which you see yourself when you think to yourself, “I’m the attorney I always wanted to be.”

To establish my street cred on this matter, human resources professionals spend time with—and, from time to time, money on—attorneys; it comes with the HR territory.  Depending on how your company conducts its business, in HR you meet and work with a lot of lawyers, some on your side, some on the other.  Some work for regulatory agencies and some work for firms, some work for unions, and some for insurance companies.  Wherever there are people, there are legal conflicts to be resolved, and that is what lawyers do.  I hired them, retained them, called them at home in emergencies, and spent my share of time at negotiating tables and in caucus rooms.  So I have been a client of many firms and many lawyers, and . . .

Street cred continued: I am married to my own talented lawyer.  And here is what I know:

Understanding early in your education how the lawyer you become in your mind’s eye makes a living is key to realizing your vision of your future.  If you wait until you are applying for internships, reacting to suggestions by your career services team, or wishing you had studied harder or partied less, all the wrong things and all the wrong people will influence you. You will be swayed to view your calling as a job.

Besides the very real need to be educated in the law itself is the very real need to understand how you will serve clients, get paid, and get better at what you choose to do.  Your reputation in the profession is extraordinarily important in all three of these areas.  Your ability to blend your own priorities with those of your employer, partners, associates, and clients is crucial.  This is what will sustain you.

Most importantly, if you wish to be really good at what you do, you should like it a lot.  That is less a function of the practice of law itself (which takes a great many forms) than it is a function of being skilled at making the clients you want to serve happy with the service you provide.

So you have to get good at a.) choosing the client you want to serve, and b.) serving your chosen client as well as he or she expects, or better, and c.) effectively and with suitable integrity, promoting your ability to do both of the foregoing.

This is different from writing well, presenting a good argument, organizing your evidence, researching case law, and speaking clearly and with conviction, although without being able to do those things, you may not get far.  But you might, and that is the point.  Before you take too many steps, think about the way in which you plan to integrate content with commerce, because both are important.

Next time: Planning your law career

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How to Start Networking, Today

Posted on March 27, 2010 | 2 comments

I wrote yesterday’s post fully aware that it was not a recipe, but a Cook’s Illustrated style preamble to the recipe itself.   Before you bake a cake, for example, you have to be sure you have fresh baking powder, a couple of eggs in the fridge, and the right kind of flour.  At least.

But if you have never introduced yourself to someone you always wanted to meet, if you are not the one in your crowd who strikes up a conversation with the person in front of you in the check out line, then the steps don’t come naturally.

I don’t think that networking is my strongest suit; I especially don’t do that well when placed in the company of all-star networkers like those found in the Chambers of Commerce and Leadership organizations around the world.  Networking is a lot like flirting—it isn’t that substantial, it’s more of a process.  You can’t be serious or substantial when you do it.  You can’t be weighty.  Your needs can’t be the subject (or the predicate).

So here is a simple review of the process of networking.

Step 1.  Forget the word networking.  Just like the recipe has no place in the actual cake, at the end of the process, you will celebrate and enjoy your new friends, not your network.  Make the word go out of your head.

Step 2.  Identify your objective.  Do you want new friends, different friends and acquaintances, ideas, clients, information, facilitation, donations, more folks who know who you are?  If your only answer is that you want a job, think hard about what will happen when you get that job.  I can only say that I have spent a lot of time with people who befriended me in the interest of getting a job, who I never heard from again after they got it.

Step 3.  Create a database.  Oh this is so hard for people to do.  You must, must keep track of your connections and their contact information.  Make notes.

Step 4.  Set goals.  Meet new people every day, every week, or every month.  The time frame isn’t important, the goal and the filter is.  Your job is to meet people and get to know them and what they are interested in.  To share a moment and express your interest in them.  Ask where they got the blouse.  Note the book is one you have read and liked, or one you might be interested in reading.

Step 5.  Practice the art of making friends everywhere you go.  Start by smiling and making eye contact.  Strike up a conversation; if you do not get a response or the response you want, let it go and move on.

Step 6.  Call someone you don’t know, to ask for information.  No, I didn’t say email them.  Phone call, please.  Identify yourself.  Tell the person who answers the phone who you are calling and why.  If you get through to the person you want to speak with, thank him or her for taking the call.  Ask your question, get your answer, say thank you, say good bye.  Follow up with letter, note, or email.

This doesn’t always go the way you want.  You have to practice, you have to try, and you have to get comfortable.  I can’t stress enough that having a smile on your face will put a smile in your voice and will make you feel better no matter what the outcome.

Step 7.  Make a date.  “Can I buy you a latte?”  “Can we talk over lunch?”  “Would you like to come to our meeting?”  “Jan and I are putting together a group?”  Sooner or later you have to make a move.  Prepare more for the acceptance of your offer than for the rejection you might get.  The answer to the “no” is “perhaps another time; I’d love to get together.” And let it go; the next offer should come from them.

When you offer is accepted, get to the place of meeting first and wait for your acquaintance.  Pay for the coffee or lunch, or split the bill.  Keep your conversation low key.  Agree on your commonalities, but reserve the right to get to know someone and reflect on the meeting before you agree to anything else.  “Let me check with my (calendar, banker, spouse, assistant, or accountant) are all fair responses to most requests.  Then respond later as you wish.

Step 8.  Be honest with yourself.  Not all prospective friends can end up being friends.  Let it go as soon as you know it isn’t for you.  Some folks, if you hang with them long enough, will do more than just not be helpful:  they will hurt you.  Your instincts on this may be better than you realize—if you are not comfortable, let it go.

Step 9.  Circle back and stay in touch.  Don’t let too many people drift out of your life—time goes by very fast.  When you do reconnect, establish just how much time went by.  This is when a database can help.

Step 10.  Stay connected to people, but not to slights, wrongs, or hurts.  Sometimes a misunderstanding is just that.  Give folks a chance to grow and a chance to clear things up.  Get into the habit of sending a personal note or an email when you come across an interesting tidbit that might interest the other person.  Do not send your email lists links to spam.  Those jokes and funny writings that circulate are busily picking up URLs that will soon receive a fair amount of advertising garbage.

It is a little like dating, but making new friends is never exclusive.  It always leads to more friends, broader relationships and understanding, and a better understanding of yourself and what you can do for others.

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How to Network

Posted on March 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

I was astonished to learn recently that several of my friends have closed their Facebook accounts because they didn’t like the trivial nature of the information supplied by their Facebook friends.  Of course, this is what I love—I’m the one who would rather hear what you are having for lunch than what you think of the health care bill, only because the second thing is such a minefield.  If Facebook is like the route you travel to work or school every day, then “what’s for dinner” is the small talk that makes each day a little more pleasant.  Just FYI, I like the photos of your pets and kids as well.

Networking takes many more forms than ever before.  But at the core of all networking is the act of connecting with another human on the basis of a shared moment.  Whether it’s online or on line in the local bakery, there are some basic networking skills and tools that will help you develop acquaintanceships that have friendship and networking potential.

  1. Show interest wherever you go, whoever you meet.  Curiosity is crucial to networking; if you aren’t interested in someone you can’t really hide that fact.  Be interested and you won’t even have to be interesting.
  2. Don’t assume anything.  We all think we want to look like we are insiders who have special insight, info, or connections.  Looking or acting like you have all that will help you?  Exactly how?  People use their influence for folks they want to help. . . and they decide who qualifies, not you.
  3. Write or speak with eye contact and a smile.  You don’t have to have a conversation with everyone, but think of yourself as one who promotes good will.  How to make figurative eye contact online?  Speak directly to the point and acknowledge the other(s).  And be nice.
  4. Before you friend someone online, or hand over your business card if you are in person, write a note (on it, if it is a real card), or somehow personalize the offering.
  5. When asked about your self, be modest, be moderate, be brief, and return the conversation to the other person or turn it to a third or fourth person who is present.  Don’t worry, you’ll be noticed and you’ll be remembered.
  6. Choose subjects that are easy, fun, neutral, interesting.  Of course, if your hobby or motives are political, you may want to educate.  And if that is the case, what you really want is the opportunity to change someone’s mind—so you’ll want to ask for permission to try to do so, and respect a firm no.  Wanting to be known as mean, stupid, pushy, arrogant, strident, closed-minded, or incredibly naïve would be an unusual networking goal.
  7. Practice, practice, practice.  Networking is another word for making new acquaintanceships (or renewing old connections) that may turn into friendships.  You cannot do it without taking risks.  You will make mistakes and from time to time you will look clumsy or awkward.  But you’ll get better at it, if you practice.
  8. Do not take things too personally.  Not everyone wants to friend you; not everyone shares your interests and some folks are more awkward and less skilled at this than you are.  The immediacy of a moment in time makes it all look more dramatic than it really is.
  9. Organize and record your contacts and your network connections.  Online, social networking sites do this for you—sort of.  Organize your information according to what you want and need, not what Facebook or LinkedIn thinks is best.
  10. Spend time and effort getting better at making friends.  Remember your mistakes and don’t make them again; seek opportunities to improve.

But don’t be so quick to close those accounts.  Experiment with what you have; try out a newer version of you, ask others how they solve what you think is the problem of excessive information that isn’t crucial to your day.  We’re all so different; that’s what makes a network strong.  Time management does figure into effective networking, and you do have to sort and pick, and choose, and sometimes even ignore.

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