life@work

'Tis the Season to Set Up an Informational Interview

The holidays can be slow periods at work for some, and that makes it the perfect time to call people to arrange informational interviews.

The week between Christmas and New Year's often has far fewer meetings than other weeks of the year. So if the person you wish to talk with is working next week, they may have the time and energy to share with you what you want to know about their career progression, their job, their industry, their take on what it takes to succeed in their industry, and answers to other burning questions you have.

The informational interview is an essential tool in the career changer's toolbox. Here are a few tips to make it go smoothly:

• Explain your purpose (it's not to ask for a job!)
• Explain how much of their time you are requesting (30 minutes is reasonable).
• Prepare your questions in advance. Write down all the information you want to come away with, then craft the questions and edit if needed.
• Follow through on your commitments (don't ask for a job and don't take longer than you said you'd take).
• Ask who else they suggest you talk with for additional information.
• Send a handwritten thank you note within one day.

If you've been meaning to arrange informational interviews, pick up the phone this week and get them done!

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Change Your Beliefs and Watch What Happens

Sometimes change is as much fun as the square dancing unit in 4th grade gym when you were paired with the geekiest boy (or girl) who had really sweaty hands.

That is to say, not much.

When it comes to finding career happiness, many folks focus on making external changes. They change where they work, what they do, and who they do it with. It can certainly be liberating to free yourself from a dysfunctional work environment, a high maintenance employee and a lousy commute.

But if you neglect assessing what internal changes you may need to make, you can find that you bring all your current problems along with you to the new gig.

It's kind of like that friend you have who has a habit of moving to a new company or city or state every so often to make a fresh start. The start is fresh until the same old stale problems catch up to him.

If you're continually getting results you don't want (in your career or some other segment of your life) you need to understand what beliefs you hold about this area. Your beliefs drive your behaviors which produce certain results. If you want new results, you'll need to adopt new behaviors and new beliefs.

To explore this idea more, get ready to ponder, and get a pen.

Think about a belief you have that is limiting you. What are the actions you take as a result of this belief? What results are you experiencing as a result of those actions?

Now imagine the results you want to experience. What behaviors would you have to engage in to experience those results? And what belief would drive those behaviors?

How different are the two beliefs? How far away do you feel from the "new" belief?

Stating a new belief and actually inhabiting it are two different things. Adopting the new belief so that it feels real requires practice.

• Catch yourself in the old behaviors.
• Stop and recognize the limiting belief that is driving those behaviors.
• Remember the new belief.
• Choose your behavior based on your awareness of those two different beliefs.
• Rinse and repeat 34,598 times.

This exercise was introduced to me by masterful coach Carole Jacoby. If you can't figure out what a limiting belief is, write down what results you are getting that you don't want, then work backwards through the behaviors and you'll uncover the underlying belief. If you want an MS Word template of this and more detailed instructions, email me at heather@dreambigcoaching.com.

If you keep bumping your head against the same wall, try this exercise! Frustrated with your team? Keep being told that you're too blunt with customers? Working 20 more hours a week than you want to be? Sobbing in the car on the freeway? (OK, maybe go talk to a professional if you're doing this...) try this exercise!

This is basically about training yourself to observe yourself in action and giving yourself the opportunity to choose differently.

It takes some diligence, but I guarantee you it'll be more fun than square dancing in gym class.

Heather Mundell
Dream Big Coaching Services
www.dreambigcoaching.com
heather@dreambigcoaching.com

Age Discrimination - Should You Be Worried?

My job-seeking client looked to be about 44 and was convinced that she wasn't getting hired because of her age. Her actual age was 49.

As I listened to her I realized that I hadn't had a moment's concern about her age. She seemed experienced, and that seemed like a good thing. Most of the people I talked to about age discrimination were at least a decade older.

Her view was different. She was competing for a sales position that frequently attracted newbies in their twenties. She naturally looked a few years younger than she was but also clearly spent time and money creating a more youthful appearance.

Age discrimination is real. 17,837 charges of age discrimination were filed with the EEOC in their last fiscal year. The EEOC recovered $60 million in monetary benefits for charging parties. This figure does not include benefits obtained through litigation!

Considering how few people are willing to go to the effort to file a claim, I'd guess that well over 30,000 people last year perceived themselves as victims of age discrimination.

OK, plenty of people are discriminated against because of their age. Plenty of people aren't. We may never be sure whether we are victims of such discrimination. One important task I have with clients is to help them recognize what they have control over and what they don't.

My client may have been right - perhaps hiring managers were consciously or unconsciously seeking someone younger for their positions. That was not in her control. But as it happened, her resume and her job interviewing skills needed tweaking, and those were things she could actually do something about.

Before we started working together she was obsessed with the idea that she was too old to get a job. She felt like a throwaway from society. Everything she did and every thought she had relative to finding a job was tinged with the belief that she was too old and no one wanted her.

We talked about how that negative self image might be seeping through to prospective employers. It's quite a trick in interviews to sell yourself, be "real", be optimistic, and be honest when you are feeling defeated, pessimistic, defensive and trying to give an interviewer what you believe she wants to see and hear.

Since my client did not want to change the focus of her job search, she agreed to toss away as best she could her anxiety about age discrimination. It wasn't helping her, and it was hurting her a lot.

After working on her interviewing skills, she landed a job she was thrilled with in the industry she had been convinced didn't want her.

To my client, focusing on what she could control meant putting away the obsessive worry about age discrimination.

To someone else, it might mean choosing a different career path, choosing to complain to a CEO about treatment during an interview process or choosing to file a discrimination claim with the EEOC. (And then putting away the obsessive worry about the outcomes that were out of her control!)

Age discrimination exists, and you might be the victim of it now or at some time in the future. There's a balance to strike between naivete and paranoia. There are sensible steps you can take. Educate yourself about what's legal and what's not. Know your rights. Don't stop networking. Seek support.

But please don't unnecessarily curtail your dreams because you're afraid people will think you're too old. Don't assume that everything is about your age. Plenty of people in responsible positions couldn't care less how old you are. The workforce is aging, and plenty of folks plan to work beyond the traditional retirement age. Don't let the media stories about experienced managers with good salaries being replaced by inexpensive youngsters create such worry that you can't sleep.

I'm interested to hear your story. When have you witnessed age discrimination? In what form did it take? How worried are you about it?

www.dreambigcoaching.com

 

 

 

 

The Seasons of Transition

Sometimes the English language can be so efficient. For instance, one average-length, reasonable-sounding, easy-to-understand word, transition, sums up a process or period of time that can be incredibly complicated and feel terribly unreasonable.

• "I'm in transition."
• "I'm thinking about making a transition."
• "My company has been going through a transition."

These are cocktail party-style summaries you say when you don't want to say, "I absolutely despise my job and I need out" or "I just cannot find a job" or "The constant changes at my company has everyone's morale at an all-time low."

Of course some transitions are fairly straightforward and painless. But others can take weeks, months or even years to experience and create a gamut of emotions.

It's worth knowing whether you're in a transition and where you are in its cycle. When you understand what you're experiencing, you can develop new perspectives, learn how to be a little kinder to yourself and prepare for what's coming next in your transition.

Some of the most insightful ideas I've read on transition are from Carol McClelland, PhD, author of The Seasons of Change. She uses a metaphor of the seasons as a way to describe our personal transitions.

Fall is about preparing for what's to come. You get news of change, you feel your feelings, you wait and you worry.

Winter has three parts. Early - when you retreat and reflect. You feel tired, and you don't know anything. Solstice - when you catch sparks of hope in the darkness. This is the turning point in the transition journey. Late - when you define your vision. You catch new insights, are open to new insights and see glimmers of spring.

Spring is about bursting with energy. You experience some storms and struggle with reentry.

Summer is about celebrating the harvest. You feel confident, have clarity and feel that life is abundant.

Here's an example of how the seasons metaphor applies to a career situation:

• Summer: Work is easy because you know what you're doing and you like it.
• Fall: Rumors start flying about a reorganization. Within a couple of weeks your work group is disbanded and your job duties are changing. You're worried you'll need to make changes soon.
• Winter: You're confused and obsessed about whether you should stay or go. There's no one left to talk with. Then you realize that you want to find a situation more in line with your interests and values. You start to look at options and get ideas on how to proceed.
• Spring: You make connections, leads come in, and you land a great job. Because you spent time during Winter identifying your talents, you negotiate a package that is right for you. You're excited about the potential of this new job.

One reason I appreciate using a metaphor from the natural world to describe change is that before our world was industrialized human beings had a strong connection with nature and its cycles.(Some of us still do but many of us do not.) There is much wisdom in nature. When we were connected to nature we knew that change takes time and is gradual, that it might come in the form of growth or decay, and that we were not in control of it.

Now many of us feel pressured to master change quickly and live in a state of perpetual growth. We believe we should be able to follow a formula and enjoy instantaneous results. When we realize that despite all of our scientific understanding and all of our technology we are still subject to Earth's laws of nature, we are better equipped to navigate our transitions.

The seasons metaphor also brings reminders of tales of the "hero's journey", when heroes or heroines embark on journeys and return home with new wisdom and strength. According to Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey is undertaken by people of all cultures and across many periods of history.

How can all this help you with your transition? When you know what season you are in, transition-wise, you can know what is normal to expect and what are helpful steps to take (read Carol's book for more detailed information!)

For example, most everyone I coach goes through some kind of winter period while we work together. Winter is not a place our society wants us to spend much time in - to be in eternal spring and summer are the expectations. But there is valuable and essential work to be done during winter!Winter is the key to unlocking the future. However, you can't do that work if you are denying that you are winter or trying to skip ahead too early to spring.

Transitions can be exciting, and they can be difficult. When you're aware of your own transition journey and work with it rather than fight it, you are on your way to creating a successful future.

www.dreambigcoaching.com

 

How Do Your Benefits Benefit You?

The state of health care in America is stormy and perilous, and some discussion of it certainly has a place in a blog about finding career happiness.

Because in this country whether and what kind of health care we have is tied to our employment, we've got to figure in the benefits package when we're taking a good look at how satisfied we are in our careers.

I ran across a fascinating article  that talks about a forthcoming paper by Wharton professor of health care systems Mark V. Pauly, the title of which makes me a little bit sad: "How to Present the Business Case for Health care Quality to Employers." The subject of the paper does not make me sad, but the fact that business leaders require that taking care of the health of their employees positively affects the bottom line, does.

I know, I know, it's the reality of the world we live in, and health care costs a lot of money and that money has to come from somewhere and business leaders have many responsibilities to their shareholders and all of that. I can still be sad that profits are #1, and doing the right thing for people comes after that. Maybe. If it makes financial sense.

Seems to me the paper will offer some outstanding data for employers on how to evaluate potential expenditures on health benefits, and if I were back in HR and again concerned with negotiating insurance packages in which everybody "wins", I'd be sure to read it.

Now my focus is helping people find careers, jobs, salaries, companies, industries, schedules and benefits that they find satisfying and fulfilling.

If you're employed, take the quick survey below about the benefits your organization offers. Can you see the relationship between your benefits package and how well employees are treated in other contexts? If you're looking for a job, see if you can find out the answers to these questions before accepting a position.

• Does your organization offer one bank of paid time off, or do you need to designate whether time off is for vacation or sick time? (Which do you think is the more progressive, flexible and respectful?!)
• How much of the monthly health care insurance premium do you pay for yourself and your family? And has that increased by a large percentage recently? (Health insurance costs have increased over 50% in the last six years).
• What kind of preventive care benefits does your organization offer?
• Is there paid family leave? (The Families and Medical Leave Act requires covered employers to allow eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave (read more about this here ). Paid leave is an unusual and generous benefit, offered by some large corporations.
• Are there mental health benefits (often offered through an "EAP", or Employee Assistance Plan)? Dow Chemical Company found in a huge 2002 survey that 64% of its covered employees had a chronic health condition, and that the costliest of these per worker overall was depression/anxiety).

Organizations have to balance the cost of providing health care with the benefit that they care about - profitability.

Similarly we need to balance the cost of working in our position (whether that be a long commute, low pay, boring work, annoying customers, high stress, etc.) with the benefits that we most care about.

This basic yet honest tallying of pros and cons can tell you a lot about how happy your are in your career.

www.dreambigcoaching.com