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As a career coach, I talk mostly with two kinds of people: employed or in transition to another job. Sadly, people in both groups have one thing in common: most of them are unhappy. For those in transition, the unhappiness is self-explanatory, but why such a high level of unhappiness for those who are lucky to have an employer?
Several recent articles cover this subject. People who still work spend longer hours at it, and they face higher levels of stress. There’s no question that employee satisfaction is at an all-time low and that it has an impact on people’s health as well as relationships with family and friends.
A 2010 study found that in the United States, 55% of employees were not satisfied with their jobs! This is the highest level of dissatisfaction ever recorded, and the trend toward such dissatisfaction has strengthened steadily in the past 25 years. That means that unhappiness in the workplace is not directly related to the current economic downturn.
Unhappiness at work is not isolated. Unfortunately, it affects not only the unhappy people themselves but also those surrounding them. A recent Swedish study found a direct link between one’s relationship with one’s manager and the impact that that relationship has on one’s health: men who had toxic supervisors increased their risk of heart attack by 50%. A different study revealed that people of average height who felt unhappy at work added as much as five pounds to their weight.
A different, long-term study dealing with the impact of unhappiness at work confirmed that there is a strong correlation between one’s job satisfaction and one’s life satisfaction. Clearly, our thoughts, our emotions, and our performance on the job affect our behaviors away from the job and thus are affecting our loved ones.
What a job seeker can learn from all this is that it is of utmost importance to find out about a company’s culture, about the work conditions there, and as much as possible about the person one will report to before accepting the job. The sad—but practical—part is that even if one gets a great job at a great company with a great boss, in today’s economy things change so fast, and many of those changes are totally out of the control of the employee. So, what does one need so that work life harmonizes relationships and doesn’t destroy them? Luck—lots of it.
If you’re job search isn’t yielding the results you’d like, chances are you’re sabotaging your own efforts. Over the course of 22 years as a recruiter and 3 years as a coach, I have repeatedly seen people get in their own way and not realize it. Here are 11 ways in which you might be compromising yourself.
- Not knowing what you want – Are you answering any and all ads that address your function, with little thought to title, the job description, your background, the size of the company, and how they interrelate? Are you saying “I can learn it,” or “Piece of cake; I can do that in my sleep,” and applying little to no discernment? Take an hour and plot, based on your entire career, what size company you prefer, how much creativity you need, if you get bored easily and need the stimulus of fixing or growing something, and what kind of environment you excel in. Then focus on the job descriptions that meet that and ignore the rest of them.
- Being too picky – Some people time researching companies, trying to ascertain if they’d want to work there or not. Often they’re looking for ways to screen it out so they don’t have deal with possible rejection. Either way, you can’t possibly gauge the answer to that until you interview and find out about the job and the company, first hand, on a face-to-face basis.
- Carelessness – in your spelling and grammar. Carelessness, coupled with poor English skills, seems to be increasing at an alarming rate.
- Failing to communicate your uniqueness through the results of your actions – 99.9% of all resumes list job descriptions for the bullets. Job descriptions don’t differentiate your resume from everyone else’s. If there are ten people with the same job title, and the same job description, there will be ten different results. Make sure you communicate yours, because that’s what shows a hiring company what you can do.
- Using a generic cover letter – All companies are not created equally. That’s because they’re run by people and people differ, which means each company, and each job, are going to be slightly different, even if the titles are the same. Ads tell you what the company wants, and they want to know how your experience fits with their needs. Sending a generic cover letter is the same as telling a car dealer you want a sun roof, and he talks about how great the radio is.
- Having too much fun with Facebook – Every time you make a post or add a picture, ask yourself, “Is there anyone I wouldn’t want to see this?” Don’t rely on your Facebook privacy settings. Contrary to what some might think, this tip isn’t only for those in their 20s and 30s.
- Not following directions – “No calls please” means don’t call. “Please provide salary requirements in your cover letter” means – to me – at least address the question rather than ignore it (there are ways around giving them numbers). “Only online applications will be considered.” Yes, snail mail is better. Unless they say don’t do it.
- Not writing a thank you letter – Incredible that so many don’t do this. It’s extremely bad etiquette. No excuses.
- Not researching the company – Yes, people wing it. What were you thinking when you assumed you could fake your way through it? You can’t. Next time don’t bother to show up, because you wasted everyone’s time, including yours.
- Lack of enthusiasm – if you aren’t excited to learn more about the job, why are you there? Some job seekers think that smiling, showing interest, and exhibiting vitality is unprofessional. No, it just looks like you don’t care if you get the job or not.
- Having a lousy resume – What’s a lousy resume? Any or a combination of the following: teeny font, bad layout, difficulty determining one job from another, too many sections for each job, having a section called “selected accomplishments,” having an objective, having no summary/profile at the top, and most of all – which almost every resume has even if the rest of the problems aren’t present: having boring bullets that don’t communicate your uniqueness.
Finding a job is a skill. If you’re not satisfied with how your search is going, you can change that.
Judi Perkins
www.FindthePerfectJob.com
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So, what is career coaching? Many people nowadays use the term career coaching, but they’re not sure they understand its meaning or whether they’re using it in the right context. Any kind of coaching consists of the practice of supporting an individual or a group that has the objective of reaching a predetermined goal or goals. Coaching is a very broad term encompassing a variety of types such as business, career, conflict, executive, personal life, religion, and sports coaching.
Career coaching revolves around job-related issues. Many people use the expressions career coaching, career counseling, and career consulting interchangeably but without really understanding the differences between those terms. In fact, among the three terms there is a fair amount of overlap.
A career coach asks lots of questions to diagnose issues that need attention, focuses primarily on the client’s agenda, and works with the client on the skills needed to achieve the objectives. The process is brief and commonly accomplished via short sessions and sometimes even via phone or Skype.
A career counselor provides answers and information. It is logic that drives this process, which uses standardized assessment tools. Counselors typically meet with clients face-to-face at regular, predetermined time intervals.
A career consultant resolves problems by meeting frequently with clients at the consultant’s workplace, and the engagement is project based.
Even within career coaching there are subspecialties. Some coaches specialize in helping clients learn how to apply job search tools; others cover aspects of clients’ marketing of themselves; and still others teach social media presence and the use of LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like. I myself am a career coach specializing in preparing clients for interviews. About 70% of my work consists of performing mock interviews with clients, but a goodly portion also helps clients with myriad other career-coaching issues.
For some job seekers, the cost of career coaching can be a significant barrier. Career coaching is of course a service—one that is purchased the way similar professional services are. For instance, most people see a doctor when they’re sick; or they hire a lawyer when they need legal counseling; or they have their tax filing prepared by an accounting professional if they don’t know how to do it.
Career coaching is a profession similar to the professions of plumbers, electricians, accountants, and so on. All of those professionals invest in their careers in order to support themselves, and so, they rightfully expect to be compensated financially by clients or customers.
In my opinion, the cost of career coaching should be made explicit at the outset; and the most expedient way to announce it is via the coach’s Web site. The cost should be made transparent because clients have the right to know up front what they’ll end up paying for such a service. I’d be very suspicious if the cost is not spelled out. What is there to hide? What other surprises can a client expect? Frankly, job seekers should not engage career coaches without checking out whether such coaches have been recommended by others. And I’d question the quality of a coach’s services if no testimonials or LinkedIn recommendations are available.
In researching career-coaching costs, I’ve found it interesting that sessions vary in length from 45 minutes to 50 minutes to 60 minutes and that charges vary, too—from, say, $75 to more than $200 per session. My advice is that a prospective client look not at cost per session but at total cost and then compare that with how the client would profit from the service.
Above all, what would the likely outcome be if such a service is not used? By working with a career coach, clients speed up the job search process, work with a pro, get unbiased feedback, stay on track, and, by the end, will have learned how to negotiate a better compensation package that would cover the cost of the career coaching—often severalfold!
JTL Services, Inc. has been getting hammered with new jobs so far this year. If you or someone you know is looking for a new position, I will list a link to our job page. I’m not sure what people are thinking about what 2012 is going to be like but I figured that it would be a good year for new hires based on the upcoming election.
Let’s face it, if this year turns out like the last 3 years in the private sector, there will be a new sheriff in town. If this year turns out to be a good one, let’s HOPE that people don’t forget how bad the past few years have been. Bad policy decisions are bad policy decisions. As an owner of a search firm, I don’t need to ask anyone if the hiring situation is good or bad. I KNOW! I can tell you that the past 3 years have been the slowest I have seen in the past 15. I hope that this time people vote for real CHANGE and not pocket change!
I heard a great analogy the other day that really sums up socialistic policies. Ask a student if he/she would donate 1/3 of their GPA to a student that needs a higher one. Now, think of that for a second. Will the donation really help that person out in life? Hell no! It didn’t make them smarter. It might help them out temporarily to get into a better school but can they do the work to succeed? This scenario reflects that of the 50% of the American people who don’t pay taxes: They expect monetary handouts from those of us who do pay taxes. It doesn’t help them out long term, and in fact, it kills their self esteem. Teach a man to fish…
As you can tell, I am someone who believes in freedom and less government intrusion. These guys, regardless to which party they belong to, are nothing more than politicians! I’m an honorable, respectable person who pays his fair share and believe me, the last thing I need is more dependents! You know what I mean if your kids are out of the house. You’ve worked hard to put them through school and then you wake up and have to double down for 4 more years of hope and change. ¡Aye carumba! What a nightmare!
Now let’s do some good and help those help themselves by getting a job and a job in the government is NOT a job!
We need: Division Managers, HSE Managers, Lean Mangers, Manufacturing Engineers, NPI Project Engineers, Project Engineers, Quality Engineers, Turbine Component Repair Engineers, Value Stream Mangers, Product Managers, QA Testers, UI/UX Architects, Web Developers, Web Architects, Engineering Technicians, and Technicians just to name a few.
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Ten minutes after I meet with a coaching client for the first time, the client is facing my video camera for 60 to 90 seconds. Then we watch the video together. Differently from in real life and because we have modern technology, I can separate the impression—and the client’s image—from the spoken words. I simply turn the speakers off so I don’t get influenced by the video’s verbal content and context. This is a powerful experience, one that provides rich information. In most cases a client can use that information for improving job interview skills and then can apply the newly learned skills during a job interview. Most people are awestruck by their video experience. In less than two minutes, people can see for themselves how they’re perceived by others—something they couldn’t have known before.
Albert Mehrabian, currently UCLA professor emeritus of psychology, published his findings on inconsistent communication of feelings and attitudes and on the relative importance of verbal messages and nonverbal messages. He devised what’s known as the 55%-38%-7% rule. Professor Mehrabian’s basic tenet is that when we communicate with other people, we’re being judged to the extent of 55% by our nonverbal behavior such as body language and facial expression, 38% by our tone of voice, and only the remaining 7% by the actual words we speak and their context. Moreover, if the words we use are incongruent with our body language and tonality, then the other person tends to believe more in what he sees and hears and less in the meaning of the words.
When we interview, our body language says a lot about us and about our emotional state; and poor body language often sends the message that we’re stressed or fearful. But even before the interview interaction begins, the interviewer looks at your face, your hair, your clothes, and the image you’re projecting. Thus, he forms an opinion about you before you’ve even had a chance to formally meet.
The interviewer observes your body language and interprets it quickly, knowing at once whether you’re scared, passive, under- qualified, or something else. If you say the wrong thing, the interviewer can forgive that, but if your body language says something different from what you actually say—for example, you say you’re a person who works well in stressful situations, but your body language betrays the fact that you’re indeed stressed; or, for another example, you say you’re confident, but your body language again betrays the fact that you’re not—well, those are things an interviewer knows you can’t change.
Following are a few body language mistakes to avoid during a job interview.
- Crossing your arms, which suggests you’re either overconfident or uncomfortable
- Lack of eye contact, especially while the interviewer is talking
- Not smiling, which makes you appear nervous or unfriendly
- Hiding your hands, because the interviewer will want to interpret how open and honest you are by looking at your hands
The only way to improve correspondence between the words you say and what your body language says is to prepare for the interview and practice, practice, and practice some more. It’s best to practice interviewing with someone who can point out to you your areas of deficiency and can guide you in making improvements.
