Read This Before You Accept The Offer
I gave an interview the other day to Daryl Hannah of Diversity Inc with some advice for those negotiating a job offer. Here’s the piece he wrote.
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July 25, 2008Read This Before You Accept The OfferI gave an interview the other day to Daryl Hannah of Diversity Inc with some advice for those negotiating a job offer. Here’s the piece he wrote. July 23, 2008Top Tips for Entrepreneurs
By now it’s no secret that women are leaving corporate America to start their own businesses at twice the rate of men. Statistics show that over 75% of women-owned enterprises open for business in 1997 were still operating in 2000. That’s about equal to the survival rate of all U.S. businesses. Recent data also indicates that women invest more in their businesses than do men. Which just goes to show – women have it what takes to run and maintain successful operations. If you’re in business for yourself (or thinking about starting your own company) there are some things you can do to grow your company:
TAGS: entrepeneurs, growing your business, women business owners July 22, 2008You Are a SalespersonFor the third time since Christmas we went out to buy a new washer and dryer. The first two times we were so disgusted by the lack of knowledge or interest shown by the salesperson that we just walked out of the stores. One time we even brought cash, ready to plunk it down for the new appliances, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to make an expensive purchase from someone who didn’t seem to care about the sale — or us for that matter. Then something unusual happened last Sunday when we tried again — within five minutes of arriving in front of the washer and dryer we had an interest in, we were greeted by a young salesperson by the name of Juana. She actually knew the products we were interested in purchasing (the LG, top-rated two years in a row by Consumer Reports, in case you’re interested) and could answer questions about them. She went the extra mile by going on-line to see if anyone was selling it for less so that we could get the difference plus 10% off the total purchase — and found a place, thereby saving us $200. And Juana was familiar with all the delivery options, rebates, and warranties that wound up saving another few hundred dollars. To top it off, she was friendly and had a great sense of humor. We were delighted to give her the sale — she deserved it. As I stood watching her efficiently ring up the sale and gather all the necessary forms and information, I thought to myself, “this is the kind of person I would hire if I had a vacancy.” You are a salesperson. Whether you sell a product, a service, or ideas, you most likely have something you want other people to buy — and often these are things other people want from you. Don’t lose out on the opportunity to make the sale by exhibiting indifference, not knowing your product inside and out, and failing to take the steps necessary to ensure your customers or clients are not only satisfied, but delighted. You’ve heard me say it before (and will probably hear it again) - with so much mediocrity in the world it’s not that hard to distinguish yourself. Treat every interaction as a potential “sale” - you are always selling you. TAGS: influence, LG, salespeople July 18, 2008Making the Most of Your “Final Five”My friend Susan Picascia and I wrote an article that appeared in the June issue of Hemisphere’s magazine entitled “Creating a Workplace Legacy.” Our premise is that wherever you land about five years before you plan to retire is most likely where you’re going to remain. Companies often marginalize employees in what we call the “final five” (particularly women!) but you can revitalize your career by thinking about the legacy you want to leave behind. If you’re interested in seeing the entire article, e-mail me at info@drloisfrankel.com, but here are few tips for how you can remain productive and fulfilled during the last few years of employment:
TAGS: making a difference, retirement, Women and Aging, workplace legacy July 16, 2008Interview Tricks for EmployersWhether you employ one person or one thousand people, you need to find the right person for the job(s) you do have. Here are some tricks we use in our office to increase the likelihood of hiring that right person: 1. Write down the 5 - 7 most important characteristics for success on the job. That’s characteristics, not qualifications. People are far more likely to fail if they don’t have the characteristics needed to succeed in the job and your company culture. If you’re looking for someone who thinks of their feet, is able to multi-task, and is great with customers be sure to prepare questions that will enable you to observe those behaviors. For example, don’t ask, “Can you think on your feet” (who is going to say no?). Instead, throw out several questions in quick succession and see how agile the candidate is in responding to them. If they get flustered, they most likely won’t think on their feet in the real situation either. 2. When advertising, provide your company website somewhere in the ad (in your e-mail address is perfect) and request a cover letter along with a resume. Now you’re looking for a few things: did they go the extra mile and look up your company on the internet before responding? Did they provide the cover letter? If so, was it well written and geared toward your job? If the answer is no to any one of those questions you may have someone who will only do what’s needed and not much more. They go to the bottom of my list. 3. E-mail a short pre-interview questionnaire to further narrow the field of those you have an interest in. We ask questions like why does this particular job appeal to you, describe how you handled a difficult boss or customer, and how would your last boss describe you? You’d be surprised how many people don’t bother to answer. Cross them off my list entirely. Those who do answer have now provided further evidence of their ability to write — and think. 4. Conduct initial telephone interviews. Some people look great on paper but this way of blind interviewing gives you an idea of how they communicate verbally. If possible, have them call you at a pre-scheduled time. This will give you an idea of how punctual or responsible they are. In my experience, one in four candidates doesn’t call at all. The list is dwindling. 5. Observe and document behaviors, not just answers. It’s true that actions speak more loudly than words. If a candidate is lethargic, speaks so slowly that you want to pull the words out of their mouth, or so quickly that you can’t understand them it’s all grist for the mill. If I have a position that requires one of those behaviors it’s a good thing. Otherwise, behavior at the extremes rarely yields a valuable employee in the long-term. July 15, 2008Making Sure You’re ValuedI just finished (hopefully) four days of my fifteen-year-old daughter battling a nasty stomach virus. She’s looking much better today. But it was stressful and little sleep was had. It reminded me of the many years when she and her brothers were ill and my mother was in and out of emergency rooms while I was trying to do a great job at work and later be promoted to levels women had not reached. Keeping a career going strong under those circumstances is an extraordinary challenge. Even with a husband like mine who has been very involved when the children have been ill and there for me and I for him when things have gotten difficult, meeting family and work demands remains a major challenge for most women. If you’ve been listening to Senator Obama talk about women’s pay being significantly lower than that of men and his references to Michelle Obama carrying the lion’s share of taking care of their children, you can’t help but wonder why so little has changed since books like The Second Shift were published. Betty Friedan used to tell me that we were in the “second stage”, the title of one of her books, that men were becoming more involved and women were making progress along side of their male counterparts. And certainly to some extent that was and is true. But I frequently hear from women (young ones too) discovering that they are being paid less than men doing the same jobs. There are those who argue that this is not an issue for government. And I understand that it surely isn’t totally that. Women need to learn to be vigilent about where they stand in terms of salary — before they take a job. And when they haven’t done that, they need to find out where they stand in relation to men doing the same job and find ways within their organization to remedy that inequity. So, in other words, part of the challenge falls to individual women — to all of us. It falls to men to consider such inequity wrong and to do what they can do to alter the situation whether they are managers or colleagues of women underpaid, undervalued or underutilized. That having been said, it behooves all women to pay attention to what is going on around them. A friend of mine told me last week that her daughter was being offered a consulting job. They didn’t want to pay her what she was worth and the going rate. Her father and mother advised her to walk away. And she did. Too many talented women are talked into less than they deserve. Sometimes that’s required — for a short period of time. When it becomes a habit, women as individuals and as a group lose ground. We inadvertently teach younger women and daughters that it’s fine to accept being undervalued. We need to keep our eyes wide open, vote for candidates who are serious about improving women’s pay and lessening workplace discrimination. We should expect much from senators and congresspeople in this regard and write to them and/or not vote for them when they fail us. And we should make sure women are not penalized for having children, doing the right thing in terms of being with them when they’re ill, and caring for parents who are ill. We should nudge and even push organizations to be flexible in such times as they are rarely long-term. In our own relationships, we need to be negotiators of shared responsibility. Individual women should look at their lives, look at the loads they carry, and when they have partners negotiate responsibilities with them. It’s easy to believe that you’re the only one who can feed the baby properly, load the dishwasher the “right way,” soothe an ailing child, work with children on homework, etc. We hurt ourselves this way. And the first step in getting organizations and government to do what is right by women is to do what is right for ourselves. It’s a multi-pronged endeavor. TAGS: Equal pay, family expectations, family leave, government involvement in pay equity, negotiating pay, overworked Take Charge of Your CareerI received a wonderfully inspiring letter from a reader that I want to share with you: For the past two years, I’d been working for a Fortune 500 company as a demonstration coordinator. I loved what I did and discovered a true delight in working with customers and organizing in-store events. However, when a new store manager was promoted, things at that location rapidly went downhill. After a few months, no matter what I did, I was criticized up one side and down the other. For a company that boasts about their ”appreciation of team members”, praise was few and far between for anyone at that location. I realized that I was using my hour-long commute as time to consciously relax so that I wouldn’t take my rotten day out on my daughters. I didn’t want my daughters to see their mom “trapped” in a job that I didn’t like so I set out to do something about it. While talking with a salesperson at a shop in Kohler I discovered that Woodlake Market, a specialty grocery store, was looking to boost their image. “Hmmmm… I could help them!”, I thought to myself. After mulling it over for about 30 seconds, I went home and created a PowerPoint presentation of my resume showcasing the events I’d done over the past 18 months at my current employer as well as how I’d like to bring those talents to their store. Then I e-mailed it off to the marketing director of the Shops at Woodlake - Kohler , who forwarded it to the store manager of Woodlake Market.
Though it took five months for the position to be approved (they asked me to write the job description for it!), Kohler Company believed in me and gave me the opportunity to “strut my stuff”. I’m the new Special Events Coordinator! Thin Pink Line kudos to her! Here’s what I hope you will take away from her story:
TAGS: Job Search, job transitions, Leaving a bad boss or a job you hate July 11, 2008Lessons Learned as a Scrabble-holic
I have to admit it. I’m a Scrabbleholic. I crave words. I take my handheld game with me everywhere. Long waits in doctor’s offices are made more tolerable when I try to beat my best score. Television commercials are wasted on me as I pick up my handheld and get in a game between shows. I play while waiting for the car at the car wash. But I’ve come to realize it’s not such a bad thing. Scrabble can teach you just about everything you need to know to be successful in life and work. If you think I’m kidding, consider these valuable lessons:
1. Look to your opponent to teach you something that might one day come in handy. When that pesky little computer opponent comes up with a word like qoph (a Hebrew letter) or jato (a takeoff aided by jet propulsion) I am compelled to immediately look it up to learn its meaning. Then, at the perfect opportunity, I turn the tables and use one of those words to win the game.
2. When you’re winning, take more risks. If I’m ahead by 100 or 150 points, that’s the time when I lay down a word that may or may not be in the official Scrabble dictionary or use spaces dangerously close to the coveted triple word score hoping it will still be available on my next turn. You’d be surprised at how many letters you can string together that form real words that you may have never heard of – like orra (an adjective meaning occasional) or yare (nimble).
3. Don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Sometimes I’ll be staring at my letters, searching for just one word that will allow me to use them all, empty my electronic tray, and reward me with those 50 extra points. But nothing appears. Then I start putting letters on the board, shifting them around, playing with words like they were putty in my hands and suddenly they form a word I couldn’t see before I took such bold action. It’s a reminder that sometimes you just have to make a move that gets you out of your head and into the game.
4. Plan ahead and think strategically. The nights when I’m dog-tired and play the game as an excuse to not have to think much more for the day, are the same times when I’m doomed to mediocrity. I may win a game here or there, but I don’t reach my personal best. As in life, in Scrabble you can’t just act for the moment and expect to get ahead in the long-term. You’ve always got to be thinking about your next move and sometimes the one after that.
5. Take the small wins. Not every move you make is going to allow you to win the jackpot. As much as I loathe having to hit the “done” button knowing a word that will bring me less than 20 points, I also know every point makes a difference. The trick is to pocket the big wins, prepare for the small ones, and at times be grateful you could make any word at all. You win some, you lose some, but you suit up for them all.
July 9, 2008What’s in a NameA friend was talking to me yesterday about reviewing resumes for a vacancy in her company. She said the best resume to come across her desk was from someone by the name of “Precious.” Apparently, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to hire someone called “Precious.” The name certainly doesn’t instill confidence. She said she couldn’t imagine calling the woman’s name, “Precious, would you come in here please.” When it comes to names, there is something to be said for erring on the side of conservative. Names are our own personal brands. Here are some coaching tips to consider:
TAGS: Children's names, names, personal branding July 8, 2008Make Yourself Bullet Proof
Today’s economy has made the workplace more competitive than ever. Financial services firms, retailers, and even your neighborhood Starbuck’s are feeling the crunch. You can increase the likelihood of not just surviving in this economy, but thriving by being the kind of employee who adds value and is also a delight to work with. Try following these ten simple steps to increase the likelihood of being bullet proof:
1. Make it easy to give you feedback by regularly asking what you can do “more of” or “less of” to better meet the boss’s expectations.
2. When you are given feedback, don’t rebut it or argue with it. Simply listen, thank the boss for taking the time to give it to you and promise that you will take it seriously. Then act in ways that show you got the message.
3. Learn the boss’s primary objectives and develop your own goals around those. Be certain to illuminate how your actions are in sync with his or hers. Making the boss look good makes you look good.
4. Don’t cry on the boss’s shoulder. Even though some appear very kind and understanding, bosses really don’t want to play the role of psychologist. If you do break down in front of the boss, excuse yourself and do your boo-hooing in the ladies room.
5. Never try to change the boss. It’s not your job. You can (and should) ask for what you need to be effective (more time together, more feedback, etc.) but whether or not you get it is entirely up to the boss.
6. Distinguish your boss from your parents, husband or other meaningful people in your life. Many times women react to the boss as they might to a parent because the boss is an authority figure of sorts. This can result in you misinterpreting the boss’s behavior or comments.
7. See your boss as a human being, not a one-dimensional entity. The boss is bound to make mistakes, let you down, and have his or her own problems too. Don’t put bosses on a pedestal — they’ll always tumble off. Be as forgiving as you would want the boss to be with you.
8. Deliver more than you promise. Make certain you meet or beat deadlines, submit work free from errors, and go the extra mile to interpret data, not just report it.
9. Avoid being a “high maintenance” employee. Too many complaints, too many challenges, or being too needy will put you in this category. As one CEO said, “I like it when people push once and push twice. Three times is too many.”
10. If you’ve done all the things described above and you still don’t trust your boss, if the boss is making your life miserable, or if it’s clear your boss doesn’t trust you, you have only three options: wait the boss out until a new one comes in; transfer to another department within your company; quit. It’s that simple. TAGS: adding value, bosses, managing up, managing your career, surviving downsizing |
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