вторник, 25 марта 2014 г.

http://job-interview-answers.com/job-interview-tips/interview-answers/what-do-you-want-it-to-say-on-your-tombstone/

What Do You Want It To Say On Your Tombstone?

november 28, 2012

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What will people say about you after you’ve passed away? … Sure, that’s kind of a macabre thought. ☺ But it makes you think about the way you’re living your life right now — How are you being perceived by others?

Think about that, now think about this:

What do you think they’ll say about you at your next performance review?

There are 10 Core Behavioral Competencies on which you’ll be evaluated, and here’s why you should care:

You want to feel good about yourself and your work.
You want other people to value you (approval).
You want to keep your job (!)
You want to get that promotion, pay raise, or bigger bonus.
You want to switch to a new job, and you want good references to sing for you when you need them to.

So, think about your last month at work, or the last 90 days. Have you demonstrated the following qualities / competencies? Maybe you think you have — but are other people aware of it? … What would they say about you right now if they had to “rate” you?

How to create visibility for yourself so you get an excellent performance review.

Here are the 10 Behavioral Competencies you’ll be evaluated on, and here are some suggested activities you can do to show or develop these competencies. Remember, this is all for your personal benefit! — not the necessarily the benefit of your employer. You’re looking out for #1 (you) … Review the reasons why listed above.

Behavioral Competencies:

Leadership
Teamwork
Written Communications
Oral Communications
Strategic Focus
Responsibility / Accountability
Customer Service
Professionalism
Resource Stewardship
Innovation & Initiative / Entrepreneurialism

Things You Can Do To Show & Grow:

Leadership

✔ Identify a problem and take charge of getting it solved. Delegate as much as you have the authority to do so, then get out of the way and let them get the work done according to your clear and supportive expectations.

✔ Clarify issues that have caused confusion or conflict in the past.

✔ Use your emotional intelligence to show empathy with others. Ask about what they are working on. Listen to them. Try to understand different perspectives. Make them know that you have their interests in mind as a leader.

Teamwork

✔ Consistently go out of your way to try to build relationships with people you don’t usually interact with often. Again, use your emotional intelligence.

✔ Identify a colleague or more senior person who is good at leadership and teambuilding. Ask for a meeting to discuss his or her knowledge and methods in this area.

✔ Publicly acknowledge and give credit to other people when they have contributed and done a good job.

Behavioral competencies and things you can do for a better performance review.

Written Communications

✔ Write a whitepaper or a blog post and get feedback from your colleagues. Then approach the right people in your company with your suggested content.

✔ In meetings, take responsibility for writing meeting notes and then sending them out via email to remind people what was discussed and the next steps.

✔ Create a briefing or presentation for someone else to present.

Oral Communications

✔ Make a point of consistently providing information to your colleagues via conversation after meetings you attend. Make sure your teammates, supervisors and other stakeholders are well informed because of your efforts to communicate with them.

✔ Call a 15 minute “stand up” meeting to brief colleagues on a project, or idea.

✔ Make a presentation in a meeting about something new that you have learned that ties in to strategic goals.

Strategic Focus

✔ Ask your boss if what you are working on is aligned with the strategic goals for the quarter.

✔ See if you can come up with a project or idea that will support the strategic goals of your team or company.

✔ Think about new markets or new customers for your company’s product or service, and make a strategic suggestion in a meeting.

Responsibility / Accountability

✔ Be accountable for the results of a project. Show that you want to “move the needle” and that you are going to measure your progress.

✔ Consistently define visible expectations for yourself, and for other people concerning what gets done and by when. Do they know what you’re working on? And what you expect to achieve?

✔ Are they aware of your deadline, and do you have a plan to show them that you met it on time? Do they know what you expect from them concerning inputs, feedback, or recognition?

Customer Service

✔ Come up with new ideas on how to improve customer service, and walk around and ask your co-workers what they think.

✔ Do some research on emerging customer support tools and methods in your industry, and present them in a meeting. Talk about your commitment to customer service.

✔ Think about the people you manage as your “customers,” and think of your superiors as “customers” as well. Ask them what they think about YOUR level of customer service. Remember, you are wondering what they would say about you in a performance review. Show them you are thinking about internal as well as external customer service.

Professionalism

✔ Understand and use the right tone of voice and body language that shows the right knowledge, attitude, and respect.

✔ Learn ways of asking questions that don’t make people get defensive. Make sure they know you are always looking for a productive solution and that their input and feedback is valued.

✔ Interact with people and represent yourself in a professional way. Be self-aware. How do you think you are being perceived? What does your tone and your appearance say about you?

Resource Stewardship

✔ Show that you understand the consequences of your decisions and actions on your company’s resources — like time and money. Demonstrate that you are not wasteful.

✔ Make sure people know that your budgeting and financial decisions are based on discretion and sound judgment.

✔ Identify some ways to decrease expenses or save the company money, and bring these up at a meeting.

Innovation & Initiative / Entrepreneurialism

✔ Come up with new ideas by reading and researching emerging industry best practices, then email out some bullet points on what you have discovered.

✔ Coordinate with external customers, vendors, or stakeholders in other departments to improve an existing process or procedure.

✔ Organize a lunch meeting and have people watch a short video clip about a new trend that relates to your strategic goals, then lead an informal discussion.

rainbow of competency based performance evaluation

So now you know what they are looking for, so you can kind of work backwards from the goal and start doing some of the things that will show the 10 competencies so you get some visibility and recognition and the rewards that come with it.

That’s the idea.

Remember, this is all for your personal benefit and personal profit and $$$ earning potential.No tombstones for you just yet. May you live a long and healthy life and have an enjoyable and profitable career.

What you should do now after reading this:

1 Think about your recent performance at work and what they might say about you if your review were tomorrow.
2 Understand the 10 core competencies you'll be judged on. (Whether they know it or not, or have this formally in place or not, this is the guiding rubric for modern HR performance evaluation).
3 Think about some of the things you can do at work to increase your visibility related to your behavioral competencies. If you liked this article, please share it on Twitter! ☺ Thanks.

воскресенье, 23 марта 2014 г.

http://jobsearch.about.com/od/how-to-apply/fl/match-qualifications-to-job.htm

How to Match Your Qualifications to a Job Description

Tips for Matching Your Resume and Cover Letters to Jobs

Employers will usually only spend a few seconds deciding if you are a good enough fit for a job to warrant a more thorough review, so you need to make sure that it is immediately obvious that you have many of the skills, experiences and qualities that they value most highly.

Make a List

The first step in making this impression is to create a list of the preferred qualifications for the ideal candidate for your target job. If a job advertisement is well written and detailed, you might be able to assemble much of your list right from the ad.

Extract any of the keywords describing skills, qualities or experiences which the employer has listed as required or preferred. Also review the job duties and make some assumptions about the qualifications needed to carry out those duties. For example, if the ad mentions that you would organize fundraising events for potential donors, you can assume that event planning skills would be highly valued and should be added to your list.

Get More Information

Sometimes ads for jobs are very short and don't reveal much about the employer's expectations. Try looking on the company's website, since there might be a longer description in the human resources section of their site than in the ad you saw.

Another strategy is to search mega sites like Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com by the same job title to get a sense of what other employers are looking for in candidates. Also search Google to see descriptions of similar jobs. For example, if you are applying for a credit analyst position, try searching by the phrase "credit analyst job description".

Ask for Advice

If you are really motivated to land a particular job, interview professionals in the field and ask them what it takes to excel in their job. Reach out to college alumni through your college's career and/or alumni office, LinkedIn contacts, and family friends to generate a list of contacts for these consultations.

Make a Match

Once you have assembled a detailed list of the qualifications for your target job, review each item on the list and try to think of how you might prove that you possess that asset. Write a sentence about as many of the qualifications as possible detailing how you used that skill or exhibited that quality in a work, volunteer, academic or co-curricular role.

Whenever possible, point to any positive results or recognition you received while applying the skill. For example, if a job requires strong writing skills, you might say "While working as a campaign intern, I wrote press releases about the candidate's platform which resulted in two articles in the local media".

Prioritize Your Qualifications

Prioritize the sentences about your qualifications and incorporate the hardest hitting statements into your cover letter. Compose a thesis statement for the beginning of your cover letter which references 2 - 4 assets which make the job an excellent fit for you. For example, for a bank teller job, you might say "my strong mathematics skills, customer service orientation, attentiveness to detail and ability to work with precision make this job an excellent fit for me". In subsequent paragraphs, you should provide proof of how and where you applied those skills.

Review Your Resume

Review your existing resume and make sure that you have incorporated as many statements about the preferred qualifications for the job as possible. List the highest priority phrases at the beginning of your descriptions to get the most attention. If you have a couple of jobs which are more qualifying than others, you might develop a lead category towards the top of your resume like "Related Experience" (if they are not your most recent jobs).

Include Headlines

Some candidates will have clusters of experiences which correspond to key qualifications. Take the example where writing and event planning are highly qualifying for a particular job.

If a candidate has experiences which fit those categories, then they might have headings like "Writing Experience" and "Event Planning Experience" and place the related experiences in those sections of the resume. Relevant headings will draw the employer's attention to key qualifications at a glance.

Cover Letter Samples

Write a Cover Letter

7 Ways to Lose Your Boss' Trust

Your manager might decide you're unreliable if you do one or some of these things.

By Alison GreenMarch 10, 2014Leave a Comment SHARE

Your relationship with your boss is one of the biggest determining factors in how happy you’ll be at work, and how happy your employer will be with you. A key part of that relationship is how much your boss trusts you, which dictates everything from how much freedom your boss gives you in the course of your daily work to whether you’re recommended for high-profile projects and promotions. But it doesn’t take much to lose that trust and damage this key relationship significantly.

Here are seven ways you can lose your boss’s trust and have a hard time gaining it back.

1. Not keeping commitments. The most fundamental expectation that your boss has of you is that you’ll do what you say you’ll do or what you’re assigned. If you don’t keep those commitments, your manager won’t be able to trust that work is getting carried out in the way she expects – which is one of the most damaging things for your boss to believe about you. That’s why it’s key to be vigilant about doing what you say you’ll do, by the time frame you’ve committed to do it in – and update people accordingly when a timeline needs to change. Chronically falling short on this front can lead to a relationship where your boss doesn’t rely on anything you say.

2. Not keeping your boss in the loop when it counts. A good boss won’t expect you to report on every detail of your work to her, but she will expect that you’ll proactively inform her when it really matters, such as when a client is angry, a project is careening toward disaster, or a major decision needs to be made. If your boss isn’t confident that you have the judgment to know when to loop her in, she’s likely to feel that she needs to dig around to find out what’s going on in your realm … and neither of you will enjoy that. You’re much better off showing her that you will keep her in the loop on your own.

3. Guessing when you don’t know the answer. It might feel reasonable to make a best guess when you don’t know an answer, but that means that some of the time, you’ll supply the wrong information. And since your boss isn’t asking you questions just to entertain herself, she’ll then presumably make decisions or take actions based on faulty information. So if you’re not sure about something, say so (and then say you’ll find out the answer).

4. Not taking responsibility for your mistakes. Reasonable bosses know that employees are human and that mistakes will sometimes happen. But if you don't take responsibility when mistakes happen or you make excuses or become defensive, your boss will worry that you don’t understand why the mistake happened in the first place – and that means she won’t be able to trust you to avoid mistakes in the future.

5. Not being upfront about your biases. It’s fine to have biases; we all have them. But if you hide your biases from your boss and she eventually uncovers them, you’ll have damaged your credibility with her. On the other hand, if you openly own up to your biases, you can earn lasting credibility. For instance, if you’re complaining about a co-worker’s work quality and your manager has seen in the past that you don’t particularly like this co-worker, you’re going to be a lot more credible if you say something like, “I want to acknowledge that Jane and I have never clicked, and it’s possible that it’s coloring my view.”

6. Not speaking up when you disagree on significant issues. Good managers want to work with straight-shooters who they can count on to provide honest input, especially when asked and when the input could steer the team away from a bad decision. If a project goes bad, you’ll lose your manager’s trust if she finds out that you always thought it was a bad idea but didn’t bother speaking up about it because you didn’t want to make waves. (This assumes, of course, that the manager has made it safe for people to disagree with her and openly voice dissent.)

7. Complaining about your boss behind her back, or otherwise being a toxic influence in the workplace. To be clear, a good boss wants to hear if you have complaints about her management, your work or other substantive issues. But that means talking with her directly, not complaining behind her back. If your boss hears that you’ve been chronically complaining to others, she’ll understandably be concerned that you’re undermining her – and more broadly, that you’re spreading negativity around the workplace. And that’s very hard to recover from.

суббота, 22 марта 2014 г.

http://blog.timesunion.com/careers/50-behavioral-based-interview-questions-you-might-be-asked/1538/

Behavioral-Based Interviewing is grounded in the theory that the most accurate predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation. With this type of approach, also known as Critical Behavior Interviewing (CBI), employers pre-determine the core competencies or skills required for success in a particular job. When an interviewer asks CBI questions, they are probing for “behavior patterns” rather than “correct” answers. You can not “wing” a CBI interview. Success requires deliberate preparation. Next time, I will give you tips on how to effectively answer these challenges. For now, here are 50 questions to get you thinking.

1. Describe a time on any job in which you were faced with stresses which tested your coping skills. What did you do?
2. Tell me a time in which you had to not finish a task because of a lack of information. How did you handle it?
3. Give an example of a time in which you had to be relatively quick in coming to a decision.
4. Relate a time in which you had to use your verbal communication skills in order to get an important point across.
5. Describe a job experience in which you had to speak up to be sure that other people knew what you thought or felt.
6. Can you tell me a time in which you felt you were able to build motivation in your co-workers or subordinates?
7. Give me an example of a specific occasion in which you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.
8. Describe a situation in which you felt it necessary to be very attentive and vigilant to your environment.
9. Provide an example of a time in which you had to use your fact-finding skills to gain information for solving a problem.
10. Give me a time in which you had to set an important goal in the past and tell me about your success in reaching it.
11. Describe the most significant piece of writing which you have had to complete.
12. Tell me an example of a time when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
13. Can you tell me a time when you were able to effectively “read” another person and guide your actions by your understanding of their individual needs or values?
14. What did you do in your last job in order to be effective with your organization and planning? Be specific.
15. Describe the most creative work-related project which you have carried out.
16. Tell me a time in which you felt it was necessary to change your actions in order to respond to the needs of another person.
17. Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
18. Tell me a time when you had to carefully analyze a situation in order to be effective in guiding your actions.
19. What did you do in your last job to contribute toward a teamwork environment? Be specific.
20. Give me an example on any job in which you faced a problem and tell me how you went about solving it.
21. Describe a situation in which you were able to positively influence the actions of others in a desired direction.
22. When working on a team, what role do you usually take? Why?
23. Tell me of a time when you had to take initiative to develop an innovative project to achieve better results.
24. Give me two examples of when you did more than was required in any job experience.
25. By providing an example, how did you handle a time where others on your team were negative.
26. Everyone has to bend or break rules sometimes. Recall an example of when you had to do this.
27. Describe the process you went through to make one or two of the most important decisions of your professional life.
28. Have you ever been the latitude to make a decision for your boss? If so under what circumstances?
29. What process do you use to establish priorities? Be specific.
30. Describe an experience in which you had to pull together resources which are not under your control.
31. Give me a time when one of your suggestions was put into practice by your supervisor.
32. Tell me a time when you had to implement change in your area of responsibility. What did you do to get them underway?
33. What ways have you found to make your job easier or more rewarding?
34. Give an example when you persuaded management to do something they were first reluctant to do. What was the result?
35. Provide an example of how you resolved a conflict with you and another person when you disagreed with each other.
36. Describe in any job experience how you developed rapport with your peers and your supervisor.
37. Tell me about a time when you have had to utilize a system to inform your supervisor and teammates.
38. Give some examples of ways you minimize stress in your life.
39. By providing an example, tell me when you have had to handle a variety of assignments. Describe the results.
40. Describe the most creative way you have solved a customer’s problem.
41. Tell me about an accomplishment that you are very proud of and why it means so much to you.
42. Provide me with an example of a time when you had to teach someone a new skill or procedure.
43. Describe a job experience when you successfully communicated with someone that did not personally like you.
44. Tell me about a time when your supervisor was not satisfied with the quality of your work. What actions did you take?
45. Describe a typical day. How do you decide what to work on and what goals to accomplish?
46. Give me an example of a time when your schedule was interrupted by unforeseen circumstances. How did you handle it?
47. Describe for me a situation when you failed to meet a deadline. What things did you fail to do? What did you learn?
48. Tell me a time when you were on a team and one of your teammates was not pulling his/her weight. How did you handle it?
49. By providing an example, tell me of a situation where you had to use your ability to negotiate.
50. Describe for me a job experience when you had to serve as the leader in order to accomplish a goal.

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140317011147-15454-the-one-thing-you-must-do-to-hire-better-people-and-find-better-jobs?trk=mp-details-rc

The One Thing You Must Do to Hire Better People and Find Better Jobs

"... too many people shut the door to potential career opportunities using short-term information to make long-term decisions."

Forget just-in-time hiring. While the best people might be open to discuss the possibility of a career move, when you get them on the phone don’t try to force-fit them into some skills-infested job description. After 30 years of recruiting outstanding senior staff, mid-level managers, and company executives, I can now state unequivocally that the single most important step in the passive candidate recruiting process is the first conversation. This same principle holds true for every job-seeker, whether active or passive.

The problem is that too many people shut the door to potential career opportunities using short-term information to make long-term decisions. Whatever side of the door you’re on, here’s how to keep it open:

Recruiters: when you contact a potential candidate, don’t ask if the person would be interested in your specific open job. Instead, ask if the person would be open to an exploratory conversation if the position represented a potential career move. Asking people who aren’t looking if they’d like to chat for a few minutes about a potential career move is far more productive than selling lateral transfers. We just completed a survey with LinkedIn that indicated that 81% of the fully-employed are open to this type of discussion.
Recruiters: build a relationship and forget the box-checking exercise. When you start the phone screen, don’t tell the person much about the job other than providing a quick overview. Instead, suggest that the purpose of the call is to determine if the job represents a true career move to the person. For the next 5-10 minutes review the person’s LinkedIn profile and try to find 4-5 learning and opportunity gaps your job offers that the person’s current job is missing. These are things like a broader role with more responsibility, bigger budget, more impact, faster growth, and more visibility. You’ll use these to fashion the potential career opportunity as you move on to the next step.
Job seekers: when first contacted by a recruiter, don’t filter the opportunity on the negotiable items. From a practical standpoint, if the job isn’t a potential career opportunity, it doesn’t matter what you get on the day you start a new job. Too many candidates, using the silly excuse of “not wanting to waste anyone’s time,” ask about the compensation, the location, the title and the company name. All of this can be negotiated – even the location – for the right person. If the recruiter goes into box-checking mode, take control of the conversation and ask why the job is open and find out about the biggest challenges facing the person. If these sound appealing, describe some of things you’ve accomplished that are comparable. Then suggest a more detailed conversation with the hiring manager. A good recruiter would naturally suggest this, but don’t judge the potential opportunity on the quality of the recruiter.
Recruiters and job seekers: emphasize career growth not compensation maximization. As long as the job offers a combination of less pain, some short-term stretch, and significant upside potential, compensation will wind up in the middle of the stack of criteria passive candidates use to compare and accept offers. Unfortunately, recruiters and job seekers alike filter their decisions to move forward on compensation before either has full knowledge of the job or what the person brings to the table.
Hiring managers: conduct exploratory phone screens before meeting any candidate in person. After the recruiter conducts the first exploratory conversation, I suggest that all hiring managers then conduct a similar 30-minute exploratory phone discussion with the prospect. Top people are very open to these types of more serious, but still exploratory, conversations. During these sessions hiring managers should describe the big challenges in the job and ask the candidate to describe his or her most comparable accomplishments. This forces the conversation to focus on factors that best predict success – comparable past performance. (Here’s a link to the full Performance-based Interviewing process I recommend.) When the candidate and hiring manager agree to an in-person interview, the stage is set for both to determine if the job represents a career move. Another advantage: the phone screen minimizes the corrosive impact of first impressions increasing the accuracy of the subsequent assessment.

When it comes to mixing and matching people with job opportunities, too many decisions to proceed are based on short-term factors that are neither predictive nor fixed. Jobs can be modified, compensation is negotiable, and skills don’t predict performance. Recruiters: don't sell the job, sell the discussion. Hiring managers: clarify job expectations before meeting anyone, and then only meet people after an exploratory phone conversation. Passive job seekers: waste some time talking to the right people. You never know where the conversation might lead.

_____________________

hr-minded

вторник, 25 марта 2014 г.

What Do You Want It To Say On Your Tombstone?