Why "Any Job" will not be appropriate for You!

What would you like to have? An ice-cream - which flavour? something from the picture above? Or perhaps a sandwich or a burger? A toy car or a football? An easy project or a challenging assignment?  A job close to your home, or a job in another city?

Throughout our life, we are offered preferences. A preference is about stating a choice from among different possible like-able options. I think it is important, to have and state a preference when offered, because the chances of instantly and completely liking whatever is placed in front of us, is not a surity.  Strangely, we hesitate to state our preferences.

At a party many years ago, a friend was offered a choice of alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks.  The friend kept saying "anything will do".  The more the host pressed him, he gave the same response.  So finally the host told him "Ok, you shall have water", to which an instant choice was stated, much to our laughter.

This kind of indecisive behaviour also enters our workplace.  Sometimes, you hear it at office meetings when the boss says "I'm buying ice-cream for the team - what will you have?"  Perhaps it's our upbringing or we're just shy.  

Normally, this behaviour is not going to impact our lives very much. There are some dangers however, as we may come across as indecisive and get a reputation of not being able to make up one's own mind.  Not really positive, is it? And unfortunately, some of us take this approach into our career and life choices.  How? We say things like "Any job will do", "I'm looking for any opportunity to show my skills" or other such phrases when we are asking someone to help us find a job.  This is a common thread, particularly with those who have lost their jobs during the past 10 months.  It's predominant among freshers, most of whom have little or no access to a career counsellor or career coach who is not selling them an education course.

This approach is quite ineffective, because now, your friend or consultant has no idea what sort of job to refer you for.  For freshers particularly, the friend or consultant may not know your skills well enough to make a judgement call on sending your resume to another organization in his network for a particular role. Additionally, a lot of resumes come in a common template format, which makes it hard for any reader to distinguish one resume (and by that extension, a candidate) from another.  And so your resume remains in the back since no preference was mentioned to keep it at the top of the mind, and you remain unemployed longer.

So here's the deal - Freshers and seasoned professions MUST tell their network in very clear terms-

1. What kind of job they are looking for
2. What kind of industry preferences they have  
3. What work they do well (specific rockstar skills they may possess) in that particular role.
4. Write their resume based on their strengths
5. Prepare for interviews based on strengths so that "Recall Value" is created in the minds of the interviewer.  Read my article about this here.

This is applicable to both fresh graduates and seasoned professionals.

So don't just ask for 'any' job.  Get clarity about your job preferences by doing the following:

• Introspecting about your likes, dislikes, and what interests that may be turned into careers
• Developing strong self awareness about your strengths, weaknesses and areas where you want to develop opportunities. Get a Strengths Based Career Coach for this.
• Understand that skills are not one dimensional and can be applied to different industries, thus you can generate more job options.
• Explore i.e. research industries that seem interesting to you through industry journals and news articles.  
• Leverage your network to find out about how it would be to work in organizations that you are interested in
• Inform your network that you are specifically looking for X type roles in Y type organizations or industries.  It creates greater recall value.

Yes it is a lot of work, but it will definitely help you become 

• More clear about what you want in a job and as a career, 
• More confident in your approach, 
• More memorable in the minds of your network, and 
• You stand a better chance of landing a job that you will love, enjoy and be satisfied with.  

Keep in mind.....

Want to know how to do this? Contact me.  I am a Strengths-based Career Coach and Career Transition Coach who can help you do this.  Call me on +919820155778 or email me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com for a discussion.

Sell Yourself Into Your Next Job - Nov 2020

 Welcome to the 6th Webinar on this topic.

Register here:- https://www.townscript.com/e/Nov-20-sell-yourself-webinar

Get Ready to Really Lead - Using Your Strengths

Why this webinar?

Despite the lockdown, organizations are still hiring people.  But managing people isn’t getting easier with different generations in the workforce.  The best way is to lead with your strengths while leading your team.

Why not prepare to grab that promotion or next new role, by signing up for this journey of 2.30 hour interactive Zoom webinars on 05th December 2020 from 5.00 pm to 7.30 pm.  Subsequent sessions would be held on the following Saturdays or as per participant’s needs.

Who should attend?

Working Professionals with minimum 7 years experience who aspire for leadership positions.

In 10 sessions of 2 Hrs 30 Mins each :

• Knowing Myself Through PRISM Brainmapping Inventory
• Identifying Leadership Competencies
• Leveraging EQ To Lead Others
• Hiring a well-rounded team
• Collaborating For Success
• Goal Setting For Excellence
• Decision Making for High Effectiveness
• Delegating Effectively
• Leveraging Conflict For Success
• Reviewing Performance for Accelerated Growth
• Giving And Receiving Feedback
• Thriving on Difficult Conversations

Your Investment

Regular Price - Rs.14,999/-

Early Bird - 12,999/- (21 Nov to 30 Nov)

Diwali Offer - 9,999/- Till 20 Nov 2020

Register Here:

https://www.townscript.com/e/lead-with-your-strengths

The Relationship between Feedback and Learning

 https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-feedback-fallacy?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr

An outstanding detailed article on #givingfeedback to your team. Here are two lines that made me think, among others - "Excellence seems to be inextricably and wonderfully intertwined with whoever demonstrates it." and "Focusing people on their shortcomings or gaps doesn’t enable learning. It impairs it."

#cliftonstrengths #strengths #strengthsdecoder #strengthscoaching #feedback #learning #teamcoaching #teammanagement

Sell Yourself Into your next Job - 17 Oct 2020

Register here:  https://www.townscript.com/e/Oct-20-sell-yourself-webinar

What kind of Teamwork does your Organization have?

Hopefully, not like the picture above.

Have you noticed that when examples of Teamwork are discussed by learning professionals or those from other functions, the following are most often quoted?

1) River rafting crew
2) Rowboat race (different countries have different types of boats so I'm simply saying "rowboats")
3) Flock of flying geese.
4) Formula One (F1) Pit Crews
5) Sports teams - cricket / football / hockey / basketball (take your pick).
6) The armed forces

7) A colony of Ants

Most folk focus on the output and the interchange between the team members, and don't really notice the different skillsets required for these teams to function.  I'll talk about two particular teams viz. the rowboat and the F1 Pit crew a little more to illustrate my point.

Here is the image of a rowboat race

And here's one of the F1 Pit crew

What I like about both images:

• The hallmark for both these teams is synchronous precision. This is poetry in motion, to me.  I'm not referring to winning, but getting the job done.
• There's heavy focus on learning and preparation - without which a team or individual cannot succeed.  
• Every person knows his role inside out, on both teams.

What I see as different between the two:

• In the rowboat team, the task to be performed is of low or medium complexity.  But with the F1 team, the tasks are comparatively of a fairly high level of complexity.
• In the rowboat team, the tasks are the same for most of the team members, except the navigator.  Therefore hiring for this team, will not be a really a complex activity.  Compared to this, each member of the F1 team must have specialized knowledge to execute his or her task. Hiring for this team will take special effort.

As a leader, which of these teamwork variations would be most useful for your organizations?

I particularly like this quote by Ray Dalio

Think of your team the way that Sports Managers do - No One person possesses everything to produce success, Yet everyone must excel.

With the idea that "everyone must excel", the answer is both - for certain conditions.

In startups, since you can't hire that fast, you need people to perform like the F1 crew.  So specialized folk are the key hires here.

When the organization grows to a midsize or large organization, this would be a time to standardize tasks, and bring more of the rowboat team members on board.

Here are a few questions to help evaluate your organization's teams and where you need them to be:

• What is the projected pace of performance expected from your team?  Will it be sufficient to take the organization closer to it's vision every year?  If not, what's the backup plan?
• Are there any upcoming challenges in the external business environment that will impact your organization's progress this year (other than COVID19)?  What is the contingency plan here?
• How many rowboat teams and F1 Pit crew teams do you need?  Are they sufficiently staffed?  Are they being provided with robust, business-linked learning interventions?
• Which are your critical positions? Are they all filled? What is the backup / contingency plan for these positions?
• Is your organization's attrition data available, understood and actioned upon? If not, by when will it be?
• And since I'm a strengths strategy coach - Are the strengths of your team members balanced with the weaknesses of other team members?

Please share your perspectives about teamwork and manpower planning.  Have I raised more questions in your mind?  I'd be happy to have a chat.  Write to me at ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call me on +919820155778 for a discussion.

Sell Yourself Into your Next Job - 26 Sept 2020

 

Here's the flyer and link for #sellyourself into your Next Job - a #strengthsbasedresume writing and #interviewprep Webinar".

https://www.townscript.com/e/Sep-20-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-prep-webinar

Please do sign up and share with any of your friends who would be interested. Do take advantage of early bird offer.

#jobsearch #jobseekers #jobsearchtips #resumetips #resumewriting #interviewtips #interviewadvice #interviewskills #interviewsuccess #vacancy #strengthsdecoder

Effectively Interviewing technical candidates using a Sherlock Holmes technique

Here's a super article on how to interview technical candidates effectively.

I have used a variation of this technique, but this article has helped me add to my knowledge and skills in this area.

Read more here

Sell Yourself Into your Next Job - Aug 2020

The next webinar of "Sell yourself Into your Next Job - A Strengths Based Resume writing and Interview Prep Webinar" is on 15 August 2020.

Details are in the link below. There is a special Independence Day Offer of Rs. 500/- this time only. Please take advantage and register soon.

https://www.townscript.com/e/Aug-20-sell-yourself-into-your-next-job-a-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-webinar-231114

Here's a few testimonials from previous participants.

Call +919820155778 or write to me in case of questions.

#jobsearch #resumewriting #interviewpreparation #interviewtips #strengthsdecoder #strengthscoaching #strengthsbasedresume #jobseekers #jobhunt

If your career path might need you to create a new one

This article provides useful insight about how your career path may require you to create a new one.

Enjoy!

 https://www.td.org/insights/3-questions-explore-how-your-career-path-may-be-shifting

Contact me if you want to design your career based on your strengths. 

This would be about 8-10 coaching sessions of 60-90 minutes duration where you would start by 

• taking the CliftonStrengths assessment
• a debrief of your Cliftonstrengths report
• Coaching to help you understand how your strengths manifest as behaviours
• A values inventory for you to understand which are the values  that drive your behaviour
• Coaching to help you identify a career that is based on and aligned with your strengths
• Any other behaviour issue that you wish to resolve

Happy to get on a call to discuss and answer any questions you may have.  I can be reached at +919820155778 or leave a comment here.

HR Job Hunting - Change Driver or Passenger.

This is an article with great tips for #HR #jobseekers positioning yourself as a #changedriver instead of a #passenger during your #jobinterview .

But I'm not sure how feasible or practical it is, especially for junior candidates, to do this. Even senior folk will have a tough time. For those from other functions, there may be something to learn.

Click here to read.

Need help in preparing for an interview - contact me @+919820155778

#jobhunt

Video - Why you need a Strengths Based Resume

As you may know I am a Strengths Strategy Coach that works primarily in the field of career transition.

Check out my video here that tells you why this is important.

https://youtu.be/RYcwraUFmz0


I will be covering this in my upcoming webinar "Sell yourself into Your Next Job" on 18 July 2020.  You can register for the webinar here:

https://www.townscript.com/e/July-20-sell-yourself-into-your-next-job-a-strengthsbased-resume-writing-and-interview-webinar-231114

How to Negotiate a Pay Raise in a Pandemic

Folks,

This is a super article to help you prepare for a salary negotiation during difficult times such as these #covid19 times.

BY SUZANNE DE JANASZ

Suzanne de Janasz  is professor of management and conflict resolution at George Mason University and director of executive negotiation programs. 

Asking for a raise at a time when many organizations are grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic recession may seem counterintuitive. However, savvy employees recognize that tough economic times may offer unique opportunities to help their employer reduce costs, increase revenues, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance competitiveness. Perhaps while quarantining you’ve been forced to use once-forgotten (or newly developed) skills and capabilities that are now more valuable than ever—such as business development, social media marketing, process improvement, or project management. Improving a company’s bottom line during economic hardships can warrant a much-deserved raise. Remember, you don’t get what you don’t ask for. The challenge lies in how you ask.

KNOW YOUR WORTH
Your new or improved skill set is a great point of leverage for negotiating a raise, but how much should you ask for? Here is where you should reflect on your contribution to the company, what is valuable to you, and your options for receiving compensation for that value. Research salaries for someone with your responsibilities, education, and experience. Demonstrate your current and future worth by communicating inefficiencies that your ideas have reduced, or include new clients you’ve brought in

Read the rest here

Balanced Leadership for Crises

Cometh the Hour, Cometh the person!!


With the current COVID19 crisis, leadership in different spheres has been pushed under the lens of scrutiny.  Political and medical leaders are the first to be watched - what are they doing / planning to do? Does their plan make sense? Or worse still - do they know what they are doing?

Now, there was really nothing in the past few decades to prepare any leader or individual for such a situation.  So we cannot really point fingers at leaders who don't seem to be doing a great job.  This post is not about finger-pointing at all.

This post is about how the leaders are acting or reacting.  To put it simply, every leader has had to REACT. There wasn't any choice.  However, once the initial stage of reaction passed, what was the next step?  This next step (according to me) clearly showcases the two types of leaders:

• A Transactional Leader.

A Transactional leader is one who takes care of business as it is required in the moment.  This is pretty much the formula in the Situational Leadership Model, where the leader's style is dictated largely by the willingness and readiness of his team members.

Make no mistake - this leader is critical to get the business plans and day to day operations executed.

• A Visionary Leader.

A Visionary Leader is one who provides direction to the organization for the long journey ahead. S/he is able to look beyond the pressures of the current storm and plot out a course. Perhaps revise the old direction completely and create a new one. Alternatively, s/he would coach the immediate reports to think and plan alternative means of getting to the future they have already identified and worked towards till the start of the COVID19 crisis this year.  Perhaps s/he and her/his team will decide to personally call their best customers, understand their situation, ask what support they might need - AND NOT SELL in the first call.  I am sure this will strengthen customer relationships and energize the team by giving them something clear to focus on to build or rebuild the business.


While the leader would have to perform both roles, a balance is required.  Too much focus on transaction may lead to too many unhealthy cuts of manpower and budgets and growth plans.  Too much focus on the new future (which no one really knows anything about, no matter what the experts say) will lead to some crucial decisions being missed out.

I guess the important question is - How does one develop this Visionary ability?  Here are my thoughts:-

• Be completely human in your approach. So - acknowledge your emotional side, speak about the feelings that people are going through, and share yours too.
• Be totally clear about your personal values and those values that the organization stands for, and talk about how your plans and actions are in line with those values.
• Develop analytical skills, make use of data modeling and AI to partway support your visionary journey.
• Re-evaluate your internal processes to see what can be done to increase customer satisfaction to both survive and thrive. This would have the added benefit of making your customers your brand ambassadors.
• Focus on realigning staff (instead of retrenching) as processes are changed so that the impact of the effectiveness increases.
• This means ensuring that the most effective employees are retained, along with those who are not that effective, according to your resources and balance sheet.  Ricardo Semmler's book "The Seven Day Weekend" gives interesting insights about this critical aspect.
• Please don't look only at Performance Management ratings when taking people decisions. Try and adopt a Potential Assessment approach so that you don't end up sending away an average performer today, who could, some months ahead, end up being a critical contributor. HR folks - your opportunity to let your strategic side shine, not to mention your ability to make HR data valuable beyond the compensation budget.
• If you have to let people go, please ensure that their dignity is intact - and this applies to all levels. You will definitely enhance the Trust Factor within and outside the organization, and enhance a supportive Employer brand image in the departing employees' minds.
• Review the organization's culture and processes and see what can be done to improve the ease of doing business or reduce the associated bumps and scars.

I haven't numbered these to allow the leader to rank them in some order of importance, according to his business.  In fact, it would be a great exercise to do with your top team, and some of you may have done it already.  You want help to do this? Write to me on ryanbbarretto@hotmail.com or call +919820155778 for a discussion.

You have more ideas?  Please do share.  

When your Strengths attack - YOU!

As I waited to cross the street the other day, a motorbike rider was going past. As he slowed down at the intersection, I noticed that the sidestand of his bike was sticking out. This is a dangerous thing, as any biker knows, since it can cause the rider to wobble on a turn or have a fall. So I yelled out "Stand" to him as he passed me. He immediately kicked it back up while in motion, and waved a thanks to me as he went on his way.

This got me thinking - what aspect of our habits and behaviours, similarly stick out (like the bike stand) without our knowledge and cause us to fall, or create problems in our relationships or get in our way of doing things.

There have been occasions where I have been making my point logically during a discussion (my view) when I am informed by a friend or my spouse that I'm shouting. I was unaware of the increase in volume in my voice, and immediately rejected their statement and went on to further explain my point, at a higher volume. Not my finest moment, to say the least, But we can't depend on signals like these always, since we may sometimes get caught up in the moment.

We know that our Talents and Strengths manifest through our behaviours. In Strengths Strategy language, we say that this behaviour is either an overuse of a Strength / Talent or a blind spot - because of the lack of control and awareness of how the strength is actually manifesting. This is important because our strengths (in the right proportion) serve a particular purpose, but an excess use of a strength can lead to a weakness.

This was the revelation of a participant at my recent Decode Your Strengths Workshop - "I'm surprised to learn that my weaknesses are actually my strengths in overuse".

Now here's the key thing - this overuse or blind spot is also a part of who we are. We cannot reject it or ignore it - too risky. Hiding it also doesn't help - it can pop out during the oddest occasion.

Please read the rest here.

This article first appeared on Linkedin on 09 January 2017.

Webinar - Sell Yourself into Your Next Job on 30 May 2020

Use this lockdown time to redo your #resume and prepare for your #interview based on your #strengths. Register for this highly interactive and reflective #webinar on 30 May 2020 that will change the way you think about presenting your candidature in your resume and in your interviews.

Why this webinar is needed -

The job market is terribly crowded, especially with the COVID 19 layoffs. Resumes are flooding the recruiters tables. There's a paucity of time to read through every resume, and as a result, they skim through the pile of resumes, trying to shortlist as quickly as possible. Now, if you happen to have a standardised template for your resume, it's extremely difficult for it to standout from the others, especially in a short time frame.

So you need to make your resume talk about you, come alive to the reader of your resume so that you get shortlisted for an interview. After this, you also need to prepare for this interview so that you create "Recall Value" in the mind of the interviewers, even if you don't get the job. It helps build your reputation. To know more about "Recall Value", please read my article here.

In this webinar you will learn to create a resume that you will be proud of, as well as prepare for interviews based on your personal strengths. We will also have a specific Q&A session focused on Interview Tips. What you will learn specifically
• How your strengths can make your resume stand out
• Strengthening your Lead letter so that the recruiter prioritizes your interview.
• Video Interviews.
• Tackling tricky Interview Questions
• Creating “Recall Value” during your interview
Date and Time 30 May 2020 4 pm to 6 pm Venue: Zoom Link will be provided to registered participants only. Your Investment Normally, this is priced at Rs. 2,500/- per person for an online session.

However, given the Covid circumstances we are in.

Your special Covid Price is Rs. 800/- per person

Click here to register

Your Facilitator - Ryan Barretto
Ryan is India’s 1st Strengths Strategy Coach who specializes in leveraging his client’s strengths to help them achieve success. As a coach, he works in the area of career transition, self development  and executive coaching. He is also a Corporate Trainer and an HR Consultant.

A graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Ryan brings to the table 25+ years of rich experience in all HR domains. His work experience also pans across multiple industries ranging from Telecom, IT Education, Logistics, Marketing Services, Health Insurance to Time Share and includes a startup where he set up.

He has coached college students, fresh graduates and working professionals. He has been part of hiring teams that have interviewed both campus students and working professionals, and has seen some major errors that could have been avoided with some more preparation

Visit www.strengthsdecoder.in  or www.linkedin.com/in/barrettoryan to know more about him and his work.