ORCMS Career Blog

How do people in your profession establish credibility?  Years of experience?  Higher education?  Professionalism?  Knowledge of your industry? All of the above?

What “tickets” do professionals in your field need to “get punched” in order to be counted in the upper echelon of your field? Accountants sit for the CPA or CMA exam.  Lawyers have to pass the Bar Exam for the state(s) in which they practice law.  Project Managers can get  a PMP certification.  Human Resource managers can go for the PHR, SPHR, or GPRH.  For some professions these certifications are required.  In other fields they are a way of gaining status.  Sometimes these certifications require education and a certain number of years in practice.  Others can be achieved straight out of college or grad school.  Do you know the certification requirements and opportunities for your profession?

Many professions REQUIRE continuing education or advanced certification of their members.  Professional certification is a great way to keep up on the changes happening in your field.  It’s a way to learn more about what’s happening in your industry or profession, and a it’s also a GREAT way to distinguish yourself from others who do the same thing  you do.

You should note that there is a difference between certification and certificates.  Many universities have certificate programs for anyone who wants to enroll.  They provide a certain level of knowledge about a profession,  and they sometimes will help prepare students for taking the certification exams.  Certification, on the other hand, is usually provided by the profession itself.  Certification is often a more rigorous process and is more widely recognized among the members of the profession granting certification.

If you want to advance your career, look into obtaining a professional certification.

When you have completed the search for yourself on the Internet you may need to clean up anything that doesn’t fit your “personal brand identity.” If there are pictures on your MySpace or Facebook account that you would not want an employer to see, take them down. If your pictures on Google Images isn’t what you want, get them removed. If you have any articles written by or about you that don’t serve to promote you AS YOU INTEND TO BE PRESENTED, it’s time to take some serious action!

There are two potentially negative options for what you may find on your personal Google search:  a) nothing (this is bad!), or b) negative (this is damaging!).  I once worked with a supervisor who was demoted because of her pictures on MySpace.  We worked for a rather conservative company, and the pictures of her drinking with friends (obviously drunk) did not fit the corporate image they wanted to portray.  Can they do that?  I’m not sure of the legalities (I’m no Lawyer), but my recommendation is that it is better to be safe than sorry.  It’s not just the “rich and famous” who need to be aware of their public presence.  It’s ALL of us!

Here are some questions that will help you make your Internet presence match your desired target:

• What is your Unique Selling Proposition?  (Your USP)
• Can you state it in 10 words? (If not, it’s probably not focused enough)
• Does your Internet presence clearly portray your USP?
• What (specifically) do you need to add?
• What (specifically) do you need to delete?
• Who will help you do these things?

When did we lose the idea that we are supposed to “dress for success?” We still should pay attention to the way we dress, regardless of our company dress code! Here’s why. . .

We counsel our clients to dress at least one step above the conventional dress code when interviewing for a job. If our clients are planning on working in a software company, we STRONGLY encourage them to wear shoes and a collared shirt . . . even though most of the people in the building will be wearing flip-flops and a t-shirt! It’s MUCH easier to remove a coat and tie if you find yourself overdressed than it is to sit through an interview with hiring managers if you are under dressed!

Tip #12 is simple.  Cut your hair. Wash your clothes. Pay attention to your personal grooming. Dress for success! When YOU take yourself more seriously, so will the people you are trying to impress.

My good friend Clara Flory (85 years old at the time) used to say to me, “God gave us TWO ears and ONE mouth.  That’s why we should listen TWICE as much as we talk!” I was a young man at the time and listened politely to what she had to say, but I didn’t fully understand the importance of her comments until later.  Much later.  I wanted to impress people with my vast knowledge.  I wanted them to think I was “smart” and “eloquent”.  When I was unsure if my constant jabbering achieved that goal, I would talk more or louder and listen less.  Now I look back with slight embarrassment.  I jumped to conclusions.  I made assumptions that led me to be unproductive.  I thought I was “solving” problems.  Now I see that I may have created more problems than I ever solved. If I had only listened to Clara.  If I had only LISTENED!

I’m sure this has never happened to you.

Growing up my grandmother had a sign on her kitchen wall that read, “I would rather remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.”  (Abaraham Lincoln)  I have a feeling that “Honest Abe” had a Clara Flory in his past as well.  I wonder how long it took for him to learn this valuable lesson!

How much do you expect to make in your next job? $50K per year? $70K? $100K? More? Multiply that by the number of years you plan to spend on the job, and that’s how much your resume is worth! If you were going to buy space in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal for an ad campaign that would yield you this much revenue, wouldn’t you want to make CERTAIN you are getting your money’s worth? You bet you would!

Think about it. Wouldn’t it be worth your time and effort to make sure you get it right? Would it be worth an extra $500 or $1,000 to make sure you are presenting your product (i.e. YOU) in the best possible manner?

Here are my top 5 tips for making sure you have a top notch advertising campaign:

1. FOCUS your product offering. Know what you have to offer and who needs it. DON’T try to be all things to all people. Focus your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) to present yourself in the best possible way to your key target audience.
2. DON’T waste any space! Would you put a picture of your dog in a full page ad in the New York Times? Not unless you are selling puppies! Then why list your hobbies and accomplishments unless they are DIRECTLY related to your career objective?
3. BE CLEAR about what you have to offer. Don’t make the reader guess. Don’t allow them to read between the lines. If you can do something for them (which is really all they care about), state it up front and in clear language.
4. QUANTIFY results. The “native language” of the people who have the authority to hire you is NUMBERS. In order to best speak their language and gain their attention you need to quantify your results from past activities. How much? How Many? When? Where? How often? How much of an increase was that? These numbers will show your potential employer that you have done it before and could most likely do it for them.
5. Get help if you need it. There are a lot of great resources out there. Check out our “Resource Page” for more info on this. Especially helpful is “Doug’s List” (at the bottom of that page). If you need more direct coaching you can contact one of us at: info@orcms.com.

Your resume is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Think of it as a high priced advertising campaign. You want to make certain that it is clear, polished, and effective — because you can’t afford to waste time and money on anything less.

By now you should know that we recommend blogging for job seekers, because blogs will help you increase your ranking on search engines. 80% of all hiring managers have said that they will do a Google search prior to talking to a candidate. They simply want to know what the Internet says about you BEFORE they invest any more time talking to you. If the Internet presents you as an “expert” in your field it is much more likely they will take the time to talk to you. Blogging can help you be seen as an expert in your field — so long as your blogging enhances you “brand”.

Unfortunately blogging is a real commitment. If you aren’t going to commit to blogging at least once a week, then you really shouldn’t start a blog. It will be a waste of time.

We don’t all have the time or commitment level to keep up a blog, however, there ARE ways that you can use blogs to enhance your Internet presence and increase your search engine rankings without making the commitment to write a blog. Here are 5 things we recommend:

1. Comment on popular blogs related to your area of expertise — be sure to leave your name and email address in the post so others can find you
2. Find a Bulletin Board or list serve relating to your target industry or profession and become an active participant
3. Become an expert on LinkedIn by answering pertinent questions
4. Ask to write a guest post for your favorite blog — this helps you and the blogger!
5. Read lots of blogs and forward appropriate info and links to other networking partners (”I just read this post and was thinking of you” — while it won’t specifically jump your rankings on Google, it WILL help your colleagues know you are serious about helping them.)

Finally, and I’m sure I don’t really have to mention this, be 100% CERTAIN that in every posting you make online extends and enhances your “brand”. Otherwise, your Internet presence may be more confusing that helpful to your potential employer.

When a Business Coach with the resume of Tom Cochran recommends a book, you should immediately find a copy and start reading. That’s exactly what I did last week after Tom recommended “Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” by Chip and Dan Heath. WOW! If we can put the ideas from this book into practice, our “message” should grow in effectiveness by exponential numbers.
Here’s what the Heath brothers have to say.

They base their research on a piece of “The Tipping Point” which refers to why some ideas are “sticky” and others are not. Beginning the book with an urban legend that, no doubt, most of us have heard, they explore the six key qualities of an idea that is made to stick: Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and Stories (SUCCESs).

The book has tremendous implications for anyone conducting a marketing campaign — whether you want to grow a business or to find a job. Isn’t that the purpose of marketing, to get your clients to think of YOU when they need your products or services? Don’t you want your potential employer to think of you FIRST when they have an opening for that perfect job? Make your “message” sticky, and it will be the first one they think of in such a situation.

I recommend the book. It’s a quick read, and important to any of us who want to have our message remembered.

CMS is a professional Career Coaching organization. We use a proprietary process called “The CMS Career-X Model” which combines Professional Career Advising with Executive Coaching to help executives find the proper Career Position for this time in their life. I get a lot of inquiries about this statement, so today I want to explain each of the two aspects of Career Coaching.

Career Advising is like the tool box –

• We give you the tools to improve your career (i.e. how to write a great resume or cover letter. What to say. . . Etc.)
• Focuses on OUTCOMES and DELIVERABLES — i.e. Resume Writing, Career Information Exploration

Tools used in Career Advising –

• Resume writing skills
• Interviewing skills
• Self-branding and self-marketing skills
• The career process
• Research techniques related to specific industry, company or position

Executive Coaching is more introspective and therapeutic –

• Coaching helps you look at your personality traits, your strengths, etc. to examine where you are heading (like examining your life, a bit like counseling, etc.)
• Coaching is more focused on the PROCESS — determining “who am I?” and “how do I fit in with the world of work?”

Tools used in Executive Coaching –

• Personality Inventories
• 360 evaluation
• Values clarification exercises
• Career self-efficacy tools
• Assessment tools
• Individual Coaching (using a modified “Co-Active Coaching” model)

Here are my suggestions for reviewing 2007 in order to find a better, higher paying, more excellent job in 2008.

•  Go through your calendar and list successes you have had this past year -  YOU get to define success.  Did you hit a personal sales high? Re-organize a process?  Write a training manual? Help increase company profitability?
• List personal success as well — did you organize a trip to Europe? Increase your credit score by 100 points? Complete a major home improvement project?
• Don’t forget volunteer activities — professional organizations, faith community, service organization. . .
• Quantify your successes — Numbers are the language of business.  To catch the eye of upper level (i.e. hiring_ managers) you need to show numbers.  How many?  How much?  How quickly?  How often?
• Use % sparingly — real numbers count.  Percentages can be misleading!
• Write a brief narrative of each success including — a) did what?, b) for whom?, c) resulting in . . .
• Pick the top one or two success narratives that fit your career objective and work them into your resume. 
• Get help if you need it — ask a friend to proofread, contact your career coach, ask a recruiter to check it over.

These are simple tips — but doing this at least once a year will give you a leg up for when it comes time to find a new job, get a promotion, or ask for a raise!

I’m curious to find out where our readers volunteer. Where do YOU volunteer?

Volunteering produces a lot of positive outcomes for you, and for the organizations where we give our time and talents. Here are some important potential outcomes from volunteering:
- you can pick up new skills and/or experiences to use on your resume
- you can utilize a new skill in an organization that needs what you have just learned in school, on the job, or in the organization itself
- organizations can achieve their mission through your gift of time, energy and talent
- you can achieve wholeness in your life (volunteering provides an outlet that you may not have in other areas)
- it fun!


Let’s compile a list of some of the places our readers volunteer. Let us know where YOU volunteer (and what you are getting out of it).