Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms

Competency Based Performance Reviews

My good friend, Robin Kessler, has just completed her third book, Competency-based Performance Reviews: How to Perform Employee Evaluations the Fortune 500 Way.  It completes the cycle of writing your resume (Competency-Based Resumes: How To Bring Your Resume To The Top Of The Pile ) and getting the interview (Competency-Based Interviews: Master the Tough New Interview Style And Give Them the Answers That Will Win You the Job).  As you can tell from the similarity in titles they all have the common theme of knowing how to express your competencies to succeed in each phase.

Performance review are not very popular with anyone, neither the managers who give them nor the employees who receive them.  There are even some suggestions that we abandon the process as it exists today such as:

• Please throw out your performance review system by Kent Blumberg
• The Alternative to Performance Reviews  by Terence Seamon
• Performance reviews are a big fat waste of time by Alexander Kjerulf
• Performance Evaluations: Do They Do More Harm Than Good? by Bob Sutton

I suspect this is because they are rarely done well.  Fortunately Kessler's book can help in this area.  She lays out the process as most companies do it and shows through numerous example how to prepare for the review and how to do one properly.  A major theme is "Don't attack the person, attack the problem".  She shows how properly structuring competency reviews can do this.

The IT Career Builder's Toolkit

Matt Moran is one of my favorite bloggers.  I first ran across Matt at the ITToolBox with his Policy Parrot posts.  If you get a chance, read them.  They are classics in the realm of customer service, an area that should be near and dear to anyone in IT.  Matt brings a real-world practical approach to his writings and he's done it again with The IT Career Builder's Toolkit.  It is not only a job search guide but more importantly a career guide.  It is available on Amazon, Cisco Press or InformIT or you can read it for free online.

An example of this practicality is Chapter 3,  "Information Technology: A Great Career" where he addresses the issue of outsourcing and off-shoring head-on.  Complaining about off-shoring in particular is a favorite past time in IT with the refrain of "How can we compete with someone only paid a tenth of what we make?" As Matt points out "Outsourcing Is About Value, Not Costs"  and the key to having a successful IT career is to focus on providing value and not just being the lowest cost provider.

In another example of practicality Matt provides a list of "Actions & Ideas" at the end of each chapter to help you put the ideas of the chapter to use.  As Matt correctly states, "Looking for work, is work".  As such, you should manage your career and a job search in particular as a project.

Matt does provide useful job search tips in a number of chapters but if your focus is solely a job search you may want to supplement it with some other books that go into more detail on those specific areas.  The value of Matt's book is in building your career not just finding the next job. For example some of the chapters include:

• Chapter 16  On-the-Job Promotion
• Chapter 17  The Boundaries and Benefits of Working at Home
• Chapter 18  The Toolkit Approach to Consulting
• Chapter 19  The Move to Management

These are topics that you won't find a lot about in the other books but are a critical part of your career.

If you are thinking about your career (and you should be) take a look at Matt's book.  As a true technologist he's made it available online for free and if you like it you can purchase later.

Book Review: "I’m on Facebook – Now What???"

My good friend from Jibberjobber (a great site for you job seekers by the way), Jason Alba has done it again.  He's followed up his book I’m On LinkedIn - Now What??? by co-authoring another great book on social networking.  He and Jesse Stay have partnered up to write I'm on Facebook­Now What???' . [Update February 17, 2008 their book is now available on Amazon.]

By teaming up Jason and Jesse bring a unique perspective to this book.  The book's website describes Jason as a "career management Evangelist".  Having known Jason for a while that is a very accurate description.  He recognizes that a good career doesn't just happen, it has to be managed.  Through his website, and both of these books he helps you do this by providing you with the tools you need.  Jesse rounds this out with technical expertise and experience using Facebook having developed popular Facebook applications.

In the book's Introduction they describe what is about as "helping you figure out how to derive professional, business and career benefits from participating in Facebook", and they deliver on this.  We in IT often use the terms "instruction manual" and "user guide" interchangeably.  However Jason and Jesse have written a user guide in the truest sense of the word.  They not only talk about the "how" of using Facebook but the "why" in regard to using it.  Like I'm on LinkedIn - Now What??? this book is refreshingly honest about Facebook.  They describe what works well and what doesn't and what you should look out for.  This book is much more than a technical manual, it is a true guide for getting what you need from Facebook.

“I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???” by Jason Alba

My good friend Jason Alba brings a very interesting perspective to managing your career.  Jason is the founder of the JibberJobber Career Toolset which is an excellent tool to help you manage and organize your career so that you can concentrate on your career rather than the organizational tasks.  The JibberJobber website and blog also provide some valuable information and advice.    What is interesting about all of this is that Jason didn't start JibberJobber as a "HR professional" or recruiter or career counselor.  He, like a lot of us found himself  "in transition" and seeing a need put his IT skills to work and started JibberJobber.  So unlike a lot of career advisors Jason has actually lived the career search travails and brings a real world perspective to his advice and to JibberJobber which is why I like it so much.

To add to this Jason has just published “I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???” that really helps you make the most of LinkedIn the social networking tool for your professional and career networking.  [Update February 17, 2008 - this is now on Amazon.] If you haven't joined LinkedIn to help manage your professional networking you need to (it's free although they do also offer additional services for a price) and you need to read Jason's book on how to best use use LinkedIn.

I like Jason's book for a number of reasons. Jason gives a refreshingly honest and balanced review of LinkedIn.  He'll tell you what is good about LinkedIn and what is not so good; how to use it and how it shouldn't be used.  Basically he not only tells you about what it is but also what it isn't.  He makes suggestions and supports them by telling you why he makes a particular recommendation.  I really appreciate that kind of information. 

Just as he does in JibberJobber Jason also provides a real world perspective of a person that actually uses the product to his book.  His tips are very logical and practical.  I especially like his suggestion on how to set up your profile.  I followed his straightforward instructions and it resulted in a more complete profile.  This book will really help you maximize the potential of LinkedIn by guiding you in how you set up your profile and how you use it.

Both JibberJobber and LinkedIn are useful tools for managing your career and now Jason has added a practical guide “I’m on LinkedIn — Now What???”.   These are 3 powerful tools - make the most of them.

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• Dinner with Orville
• The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan
• Why I Blog: 10 Reasons to Blog To Establish Your Personal Brand
• Or the posts in the "Career Management" category

Debugging Your Information Technology Career

Update 8/23/07: The author has notified me of the following:

"Last we communicated, I told you that my Under Construction site had an expected "go live" date of August 24th. Because of a problem with my developer, I have chosen a new developer to finish the site.  Although I'm optimistic that my site will be functional next week,  I've changed the "go live" date to September 7th to give me some  leeway in case there are unforeseen issues. As soon as the site is  operational, I will let you know."

Update 8/6/07: The author has notified me that the site to purchase the book is currently under construction but should be available by August 24th if not sooner.  My apologies for any confusion. --- Mike

Janice Weinberg recently sent me a copy of her new book "Debugging Your Information Technology Career" (293 pages, available at www.elegantfixpress.com ).  The book's subtitle "A Compass to New and Rewarding Fields That Value Computer Knowledge" is your first clue that this isn't the run of the mill career / job search book.

The premise of the book is that you may want to leave the IT field and try a new career but don't want to start from scratch.  You've spent all this time making a career in IT why let that experience go to waste?  As Weinberg demonstrates you really can make the switch to fields where your previous experience in IT is an asset.

But IT is so much fun why would you ever want to leave?  As Weinberg points out, outsourcing and off-shoring are the new realities in IT.  As such there is the very real possibility that at some point in your career you may be affected by this.  I'd like to suggest another reason - to broaden your experience and get some real business experience.  Experience outside of IT is becoming a more valuable asset that hiring managers look for in Business Analysts and IT managers.  You may not always get the opportunity for career changes with your existing company and this book and help you make it on your own.

Weinberg gives 20 examples of careers where you can leverage your IT experience.  As part of each example she includes information on:

Life on the Help Desk; Some Things Never Change

Being a tech support person on the Help Desk is not always an easy job.  Dealing with anxious users some of which are clueless can be very frustrating.  Now we have "scientific proof" that while technology may have changed life on the Help Desk is pretty much the same as it has always been.

Just a little something to start you on your weekend.

Enjoying Spring

Two weeks ago I wrote that Bruce Kingwell had sent me 2 stories and now it is time to write about the second one.  This story perfectly illustrates the concepts that I wrote about when I reviewed a book by Frank Luntz - Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear.  I don't know if it is a true story but if it isn't it ought to be.

One day, there was a blind man sitting on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet and a sign that read: "I am blind, please help.''

A creative publicist was walking by and stopped to observe. He saw that the blind man had only a few coins in his hat. He dropped in more coins and, without asking for permission, took the sign and rewrote it.

Dinner with Orville

My good friend Gerry Fusco contacted me last week to let me know that Orville Pierson would be back in town.  Orville is Senior Vice President, Corporate Director of Program Design and Service Delivery at Career Transition / Outplacement firm of Lee Hecht Harrison and the author of The Unwritten Rules of the Highly Effective Job Search.  He was in town to talk to the folks at Between Jobs Ministry (BJM) about Job Search Work Teams (JSWTs).  Orville was kind enough to help get JSWTs started back in 2006 and came in to see how they were doing and help kick off additional training from more team leaders.

Since I've now landed a position I wasn't able to attend the BJM sessions.  Gerry reports that they were standing room only and very well received.  Fortunately I was able to join Orville and the original group of JSWT leader for dinner that night.  It was great to see Orville and the team again.  My landing a new position is due in large part to the effectiveness of JSWTs and I highly recommend Orville's book (and website) and the JSWT process.

Lead Well and Prosper

I just completed reading Lead Well and Prosper (93 pages Be Good Publishing) by Nick McCormick.  This is a fast read book that outlines 15 strategies for becoming a good manager.  McCormick lays this out in a very simple straightforward manner.  He illustrates each strategy with a real world example and then follows this up with a brief discussion.  You can quickly read the whole book or just a chapter here or there as an occasional refresher or reminder.

As an IT guy it was encouraging to learn that in his other life Nick is an IT manager for an information services company.

I especially like that at the end of each chapter he list a couple of quick bullet points on  "Do's", "Don'ts" and "Actions".  One that caught my attention was at the end of the Chapter 1, "Adopt a Serving Attitude".  One of the Don't items was "Constantly refer to the team as 'my team' or 'my group'.  Rather, use the team name (e.g. the accounts payable team) or simply 'our group'."  Some very practical and actionable advise that says a lot about how you think of the team you are managing.

Are Your Projects "LAME"?

I'm a big advocate of Lean methodologies as a way to improve a company's operations and therefore I follow a number of Lean related blogs.  Jon Miller in a recent posting, Here are 4.5 Signs that Your Lean May be L.A.M.E. at Gemba Panta Rei talks about Lean is getting a unjust reputation due to poor implementations.  Miller refers to Mark Graban at the Lean Blog who coined the term L.A.M.E as "Lean As Misguidedly Executed".  In essence, the problem isn't with the concept of Lean but rather how it is implemented.

The same holds true for many of the IT related projects we work on.  Our projects start out with a lot of hope and great expectations and as time goes on people become disillusioned and disappointed with the outcome.

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

My wife Bridget recently heard a radio interview with Dr. Frank Luntz about his new book and the power of words to shape our thinking.  She suggested that I read it and I always try to follow her suggestions for many reasons one of which is that they are always worthwhile suggestions.  Luntz's book Words That Work does a great job of helping you craft your message.  It is all based on one recurring theme which happens to be the subtitle of the book:

It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

That is an extremely important concept -- considering our message from the listener's perspective and not our own.  As Luntz states,

You can have the best message in the world, but the person on the receiving end will always understand it through the prism of his or her own emotions, preconceptions, prejudices and preexisting beliefs.  It's not enough to be correct or reasonable or even brilliant.  The key to successful communication is to take the imaginative leap of stuffing yourself right into your listener's shoes to know what they are thinking and feeling in the deepest recesses of their mind and heart.  How that person perceives what you say is even more real, at least in a practical sense, than how you perceive yourself.

Fortunately, he provides us with Ten Rules of Effective Language.

The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan

I just finished an excellent book, The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan (John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-78977-1) by George Bradt, Jayme A. Check, both of PrimeGenesis and Jorge Pedraza formerly with PrimeGenesis and now with Unison Site Management.  As the title implies this is about starting a new job with an action plan in place.  The reason an action plan is important is that it helps you to quickly establish yourself as a leader by taking you through the critical steps of communication and engaging the culture followed by implementing your people decisions ultimately leading to early wins.  They also point out that your action plan actually starts before you start your new job.  The driving imperative behind all of this comes from a study they cite that 40% of all new leaders fail within the first 18 months.  That is a pretty sobering statistic and one that should encourage you to do all that you can to improve your chances of succeeding.

I recommend this book to anyone starting a new job at a new company or with your current employer.  As good as this book it is a shame that they may be missing a large potential audience where this could be of tremendous help.

An Interesting Day in my Career Management

Yesterday was a very interesting day in my career management.  I had the opportunity to discuss in person career management issues with 5 people who I think are at the top of their field.  They were:

• Jason Alba is the founder of JibberJobber which is a web based software program that that is a job search/career management tool. It helps you keep track of your network contacts, your job postings, resumes etc. and action items. It can serve as a central focal point of your Outlook directory, LinkedIn etc. to pull all of this myriad information together in one place.
• Kent Blumberg is a process and manufacturing industry executive general manager who is on the cutting edge of using a blog to "brand" yourself as part of your career management strategy.  He's been recognized a number of times for the quality of his blog and is the one who was the motivating factor in my blogging efforts.
• Rick Gillis is a Houston based author (Really Useful Job Search Tactics), speaker and has is own radio show - "Everything Employment-On The Radio!" Sundays 4-6PM on the Biz Radio Network 1320 AM Houston & 1360 AM Dallas/Fort Worth.
• Robin Kessler runs The Interview Coach and is author of two books, Competency-Based Resumes and Competency-Based Interviews. She also acts as both a job search and as a career management coach.  In the small world category, Robin and I are classmates from the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, IL  and have recently re-connected here in Houston.
• Dan Sweet is a Houston based recruiter the runs FRACAT (Free Resume and Career Toolbox) that is a great resource for the job seeker by providing "how-to" tips and job listings.

The impetus for all of this was Jason being in Houston for the holidays which presented some very unique networking opportunities.  It was a day of many meetings starting with breakfast with Jason and his father Dave, Dan, and Kent.  Followed by a Jason presenting at BJM which Rick moderated followed by a JibberJobber demo at DBM hosted by Michael Grove.  A phone call with Robin ensued to see if she could meet Dan and Jason last night at the "Take Charge of Your Career 2007" event Dan arranged.  A rather hectic day I must say -- and I had the easy part.

Jason, Rick, Robin and Dan are all in the "career management" field but in very different segments.  During the discussion it was interesting to see how all these segments fit together.  Needless to say when you get a group of people like this that are enthusiastic and passionate about what they are doing some rather interesting conversation ensues.  Some tidbits:

• Your job security is not how valuable you are to your employer but how "employable" you are. 
• Being "employable" isn't just about how attractive your skill set is but how well you market it.  The greatest skill set in the world doesn't do you any good if prospective hiring managers don't know about you.
• Ultimately you are the only one responsible for your career.  There are a lot of "experts" that will tell you how to manage your career.  Many are excellent and really know their stuff (like the group above).  At the same time many so-called experts really aren't.  It is up to you to make a wise "buying" decision when it comes to accepting advice.
• A polished resumé by itself isn't enough.  You need to distinguish yourself from the crowd.  Blogging can be an excellent way to do this.  It conveys something about your personality and thought processes.  It also helps to answer the all important "fit" question with prospective employers.  Blogging along with a well written resumé is a very strong combination for branding your product, i.e. you.
• Career management doesn't end when you land a new job.  It is an on-going program of knowing what you like, what you want to do, what you can offer and of keeping your network alive.
• Networking is all about forming relationships.  The best networking contacts ones are founded on a basis of "how can I help you?" rather than "what can you do for me?"

I also want to briefly mention the JibberJobber product.  Jason has done a fantastic job of creating something that allows you to manage your job search all in one spot.  This includes network contacts, a log of contact activity, action items, target company information, and files of related documents.  Sure you can use Outlook, and notebooks, and Excel spreadsheet but it doesn't take too long before things start slipping through the cracks.  Believe me, I've been there, done that.  JibberJobber does a great job of keeping you organized and on track.  One great thing about JibberJobber is that it isn't just about a job search.  You can use it to manage your career by keeping your network up-to-date and fresh along with collecting information about possible future career moves.  The second great thing about JibberJobber is that it is FREE!  That's right, FREE.  Jason also offers a premium service for $10 per month but with 90% of the functionality available in the free version you don't have to subscribe.  Go to the JibberJobber home page and sign up.  Give it a try.

The Right Job, Right Now

If you're thinking of starting out the new year looking for a new job, run out and get Susan Strayer's new book, The Right Job, Right Now: The Complete Toolkit for Finding Your Perfect Career, before you do anything else.  Being in the midst of my own job search I've had the opportunity to survey the market of job search advice books.  The Right Job, Right Now offers sound, practical advice I haven't found anywhere else.

If you're like most of us the first thing you do when starting a job search is to write up your resumé, right? -- Wrong!  Using her trademarked Career Kaleidoscope Model, Susan starts out walking you through a determination of what you have to offer in terms of skills and competencies and what you want in return in terms of environment, culture, benefits and financial rewards.  How important is this? -- Very!  My favorite business school professor was "Gene" Lavengood who taught us "When you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there."  The Career Kaleidoscope takes you step-by-step through the process of determining of where you want to go. 

As an indication of the importance of determining where you want to go, Susan doesn't even begin to talk about how you should prepare your resumé until about page 100, a third of the way through the book.  And when she does talk about your resumé she wisely tailors it around the outcomes of what you determined through the Career Kaleidoscope.  In this way your resumé goes beyond being a mere listing of job descriptions to highlight your skills, competencies and what you have to offer and focuses it on the types of companies/industries where you want to work.

The second unique feature of the book is that it takes you through the entire process from determining what you have to offer and what you want, searching for a job, through the interviewing and negotiating process, starting and subsequently growing and succeeding in your job and revisiting the entire process as necessary.  It is the Complete Toolkit, just as the title promises.  Because of this it is much a career management book as it is a job search book.  Many people in IT are faced with a decision during their career, should I follow the technical career path or go to the managerial career path.  Susan's book and the Career Kaleidoscope can help you work through issues such as this and be a success at whatever path you choose.  I started out by saying that if you were thinking about looking for a new job that you should run out and get The Right Job, Right Now.  The same holds true if you are happy in your current job but want to grow and have a successful career in the company you're at now.

The Right Job, Right Now is well written, easy to read and loaded with practical advice and tools.  The Career Kaleidoscope Model and the span of advice from goal determination to career success is truly unique.  It is an essential for anyone thinking of searching for a new job or looking for a more fulfilling career.