Archive for the ‘Resumark News’ Category
 Whether you slide into a leadership position with a new company, or get newly promoted to leadership within your present organization, fitting yourself into a new-to-you leadership role automatically creates some wonderful opportunities (that are less-readily available to old-timers) to upgrade your level of success.
Last time we talked about extending your time horizon, your readiness to share credit, and your willingness to let others lead.
Here are three more suggestions on how to take advantage of opportunities that come with a new leadership post:
Gather Your Information From Many Sources
One of the most common ways organizations begin to flounder and fail is that good, solid, timely information stops trickling upwards to where leaders can make proper use of it. This happens because short-sighted or selfish leaders tend to rewards bearers of glad tidings, and punish bearers of sad tidings. The result: honest information has a harder time moving up the chain of command.
As a new leader, you have an unparalleled opportunity to forge brand new channels of communications that will keep you aware of what’s really going on around you. To do this, try:
- Keeping your eyes and ears open. This is primary. Although you can’t possibly see and hear everything that goes on around you, the more you’re directly in touch with people and events, the better you can evaluate the accuracy of other, secondary channels of information.
- Establish regular channels of communication with knowledgeable people both inside and outside your organization - including constituents, stakeholders, or whatever you want to call them. Keep these channels wide open by using them frequently, and check what you learn from each one against what you learn from the others. All together, they can bring you a broad, accurate picture of events and trends in your organizational environment.
Keep Sending A Consistent Set of Messages
If you’re phony, it takes a lot of time and energy to remember what you’re supposed to be communicating to each person or group in your environment. And should they start talking to each other, they’ll discover the inconsistencies and become suspicious. That’s just one reason it’s so much easier and more effective to start off simply, openly and honestly in your new leadership position.
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 Every single cover letter should be personalized. If you’ve been out in the world looking for a job for any length of time, you know this. You’ve been told over and over. And it makes sense - if you’re an employer, are you going to give precedence to the cover letter that says something unique and interesting and shows that the jobseeker took their time and cares about getting a job at your company… or the one that reads like a form letter?
Here’s the problem, though: really and truly making each letter personal by rewriting it from the ground up each time to fit the needs of every single job you apply for - that just isn’t feasible for most of us. Nor is it practical. You should be spending your time looking for more jobs rather than agonizing over perfecting a cover letter that - let’s face it - most likely isn’t going to get you hired.
So what’s the answer, then? Too generic and you get ignored. Too specific and personal and you’re likely wasting time. What you need is a middle ground. A way to make each letter feel personal without actually needing to start from scratch each time. Check out the tips below and you’ll be ready to do just that - employers will be beating down your door in no time!
Name the person you’re emailing. I know it’s difficult - and sometimes impossible these days with internet postings that can even withhold the name of the company - but do whatever you can to get the name of the person to whom the email is going. Call the company. Go to their website. When all else fails, don’t do the generic “To Whom It May Concern,” Instead, address your application to the “Hiring Manager”, “College Recruiter”, or “Selection Committee.”
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 In a perfect world, everyone would recognize and appreciate your capabilities before you ever had to ask. In the modern workplace, asking is rarely enough. In fact, it’s easy to get lost amid the complexity of most tasks and the cooperation required within most teams.
Last time, we covered ideas for better positioning and extended networking to win yourself appropriate visibility. This time, let’s cover a few more ideas to make sure your work is properly noticed:
Log What You Do
Don’t trust your memory to keep track of everything you work on, every goal you accomplish. It’s too easy to forget some of the work, or some of the people. Instead, keep a written and dated log or diary of your projects, the work you do, the people with whom you interact, and the results you achieve.
Use this log to prompt your supervisor’s memory prior to and during your performance and compensation reviews. Also, review it as necessary so when management asks if you know anything about X, or Y, o r Z, you’re primed to give chapter and verse on all you’ve accomplished in those areas, and the extent of your expertise.
Don’t forget to include in your log all the praise, compliments, and positive work reviews you earn from customers, clients, and colleagues.
All this information will also be useful in establishing your value within the organization.
Learn to Like the Spotlight
It’s not psychologically healthy to be the kind of person who is happy only when he or she is receiving attention, adulation, or acclaim. But it’s neither smart or healthy to shy away from kudos you have honestly earned.
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 Unemployment-Extension.Org
President Barack Obama has implemented a 2012 unemployment benefits extension in California and Florida, two of the highest unemployed statesin the country. These Federally Extended benefits, or emergency unemployment compensation, have been extended by Congress nine times since they were first passed in June 2008.
Studies show that unemployment insurance extensions increased the share of workers who became re-employed by about 1.3 percentage points in January 2011 by reducing the fraction who excited the labor force, and what this extension intends to do is exactly that- increase the number of Americans who find new jobs.
References for filing an Unemployment Extension for California, Florida, and any other US State can be found at Unemployment-Extension.Org.
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 Have you ever been a member of a team where the leader played favorites? If you were one of the favorites, how did other team members feel about you? If you were not one of the favorites, how did you feel about those who were? Most important: how did this whole “in group / out group” dynamic impact the overall effectiveness of the team?
Generally, studies show that when team leaders play favorites, any extra productivity they extract from those they treat well is more than offset by the definite loss of productivity among those who get second-class treatment. In other words, the whole team is less effective than it would be if the leader treated everyone more or less equally. In addition to productivity losses, teams with leaders who play favorites often suffer morale problems, higher levels of turnover, and occasionally more severe difficulties.
If you’re a leader, you probably recognize that playing favorites is a natural human proclivity. We all like some people more than others, trust, admire, and even cut extra slack for some more than others. That may be OK outside the workplace. But when you do it on the job, you’re asking for trouble.
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