Magic Pot of Jobs

Several years ago a read an article which said that people who write down their personal and professional goals and refer to the list on a regular basis are more likely to achieve their goals than people who don’t do so. After reading that article, I tried it. I made a list of 5 personal and professional goals one January and I taped the list to my bathroom mirror. I saw that list every morning. I achieved 4 of the 5 goals by the end of the year. And I made progress toward the fifth goal. I started doing that annually and every year I achieved the goals I set for myself. In 2006 I didn’t make a list of goals and I have to say that must have made a mistake in not listing my goals because I don’t feel like I accomplished enough last year.

So, now I am in the process of putting together a list of goals that I plan to achieve this year. I think of goals as New Years resolutions in the form of measurable steps that I can work toward. Resolutions shouldn’t be a “wish list” of things we want to do but may or may not achieve because not achieving our goals and can be discouraging and depressing. Create your New Years resolutions as a list of goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, and trackable.

For example, one year I set a goal to save $10,000 in a year. That was easy to track and measure during the course of the year. I divided 10,000 by 12 months and realized that I would need to save $834 per month. I bought Quicken and tracked my spending, created a budget, cut spending, and achieved my savings goal.

I know a lot of people who make New Years Resolutions to “lose weight”, “spend more time with my spouse” ,”get a promotion at work”, or “get a new job”. I think if you are serious about achieving goals its a good idea to track your progress toward the goal. To do that it is helpful if you can make your goals specific. So, instead of resolving to “lose weight in 2007″ you might, instead, set a goal of losing 20 pounds in 2007. You can divide the 20 pounds by 52 weeks and adjust your calorie intake or workouts accordingly. I think its much easier to keep yourself on track that way. And, you can reward yourself for your small wins along the way to achieving the larger goal.

If your goal is to “get a promotion” you might break the larger goal into smaller tasks based upon the steps you need to take to achieve the larger goal. For example, you may need to pass a certification test or take on more responsibility at work in order to be considered for the promotion you desire. If that is the case, set several goals that will lead you to the desired end result of the promotion.

I find it helpful to set goals that encompass both my personal life and my professional life because neither is independent of the other. If, for example, one of your goals is to “spend more time with my spouse”, you might consider setting a specific amount of additional time you want to spend with your spouse. Or you might think about what activities you envision your spouse and yourself participating in together and set those as goals. For example, you could set a goal to “go to dinner and a movie with my spouse once each weekend.” That is easy to conceptualize, to track, and to achieve.

For those of you who plan to find a new job in 2007 you should break down the job search process into steps and set a date by which you plan to complete each step. In an earlier post I created a list of 10 New Years resolutions for serious job seekers. Those could be helpful as you think about what you will need to do to find a new job in 2007.

Make sure that you stay focused and don’t get discouraged if you don’t meet all of your goals on time. The process of creating a your list of goals, setting milestones, and referring to it frequently will help you to accomplish more than if you hadn’t take the time to articulate your goals at all. Try it. It really works.

Happy New Year!

Liz Handlin, Ultimate Resumes LLC, © copyright 2007

http://ultimate-resumes.blogspot.com/

This CollegeRecruiter.com Blogswap article is courtesy of Recruiting.com at http://www.Recruiting.com and CollegeRecruiter.com at http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com , a leading site for college students and recent graduates who are searching for internships and entry level jobs.

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Now that I’ve taken Glenn Gutmacher to task over at RecruitingBloggers about his opinions about what a blog should be vs. what a portal should be, I figure I ought to put my money where my mouth is.

So far, I haven’t found a satisfactory way to integrate this into my blog (found lots of crap ways to do it, though), but here it is. I’ve been tagging things I think might be of interest to you MagicPotHeads with “mpoj” in my del.icio.us links, so here’s the page where you can see them. You can also grab the RSS for them there.

What I’ve been trying to do was to set up an auto-post like I’ve got at my personal blog but which would post just the links with that tag, but that’s not supported yet, so I’ll be settling for the link roll in the side bar. Which I’ll integrate as soon as I can sit down at home and spend the time dinking with my template. (Pain in the neck. You’d think WP could have support built-in to the interface for adding scripts like this. It’s the only thing that TypePad does better, and even their implementation kind of sucks.)

I got tagged for a meme a while back by someone I don’t know, so it took me a little while to get around to doing the meme, but it’s Christmas, the office is quiet, and I’ve got a little time to fool around. Besides, as recruiters it’s important for us to get to know the people in our networks. So, I present:

5 Things You Might Not Know About Me

1. Not only would I rather hang myself with the phone cord than talk on the phone, I can’t stand the sound of a ringing phone. My cell phone is always on vibrate, and my number isn’t on my personal cards because I don’t want to encourage people to use it.

2. Similarly neurotic: I am really uncomfortable when sitting with my back to a door or a wide open space. I always try to situate myself against a wall or other large barrier-type object.

3. Blogging is like breathing for me. I have had a blog in one form or another since October 2001. I’m a dinosaur in Internet years. I currently have a personal blog and a recruiting blog, I contribute to a local, DC-focused blog, I consult on a couple of others, and I have accounts at LiveJournal and Vox for the stuff that isn’t for public consumption.

4. My secret dream is to do standup comedy.

5. I don’t drink coffee or beer- I think both taste awful. My morning caffeine of choice is Diet Mt. Dew, and my adult beverage of choice is Jack’n'Coke.

What are 5 things I don’t know about you?

You know what? I’m just going to say it, because this is getting ridiculous.

Hey, recruiting bloggers! STOP FREAKING SPAMMING ME! I’ve already voted, and if you’re the kind of person who is sending mass emails to bloggers you barely know to get them to vote for you, I probably wouldn’t vote for you anyway.

I’ve gotten multiple emails from people flagrantly violating mass email best practices, and voting has only been open for one day. I agree with Bob Wilson, that this is supposed to be a way to recommend blogs that are useful or worth reading some way. It’s not a schlong-measuring contest over who has the largest email list, and it frustrates me to see it turning in to one.

I’m going to take this a step farther:

If I receive a vote-begging spam from a blogger I’ve already voted for, I’m going to contact Jason Davis (who has been an absolute saint in putting all this together only to have it abused this way) and ask to have my vote stricken from that blog.

See also:

Recruiting Bloggers.com: Blog Awards: How To Solicit Votes

The voting has begun for Recruiting.com’s Top 10 Recruiting Blogs of 2006- they’ve done away with categories altogether because someone managed to convince Jason Davis that it’s his personal responsibility to make everyone happy. Whatev. But anyway, MPOJ has been nominated, so go vote! And be sure to check out the many fine other blogs on the list.

(I’m getting emails from people I met once, in passing, asking me to vote for blogs I don’t even read. My promise to you, MagicPotHeads, is that I have only voted for blogs I read and enjoy, and to not beg for votes. That’s embarrassing. But that doesn’t mean I don’t hope you vote for me. )

Let The Voting Begin!!! | Recruiting.com

The nominations are open for the Recruiting.com Best Blog Awards 2006. I fully expect people who post more frequently than I to be nominated and win, but if one of you MagicPotHeads is so moved to nominate little ol’ me, I think the category I would most fit into topically is “Third Party Recruiting Blog,” but I’m actually more tickled by the “Most Entertaining Recruiting Blog” category.

But, you know, only if you are so inclined.

One of the many people I met at the Recruiting 2006 show was CM Russell, who writes the excellent Secrets of the Job Hunt and is also the founder of RecruitingFly and AllCountyJobs.com. Busy man. We sat down for a few minutes to talk about some advice for jobseekers. A lot of what I say isn’t going to be new to longtime readers of MPOJ, but if you’re aching to hear my (pre-strep!) voice, he’s got it for ya.

A moment with MPOJ at Secrets of the Job Hunt

What’s this? Tiffany is silent for a week following the Recruiting 2006 show? How can this be?

I’ll tell you. I came back from New York with a scorching case of strep throat, and I blame the trip! Think about it- mass travel, a conference where you shake hands with all those people and you don’t know where they’ve been, and that skanky, skanky hotel I stayed in. I started feeling the first twinges Wednesday night, and by Thursday, I had a fever that lasted three days- right through my birthday and into the family gathering surrounding my husband’s couisn’s wedding. So thanks, y’all.

I get to a doctor this morning, and she said what you never want to hear a doctor say: “Oh my GOD! Look at your tonsils!”

But aside from contracting the plague, I must say that I had a great time at the conference. I met lots of people I had previously only known from their blogs (hi guys!), lots of people who are curious about “that blogging thing,” and just generally had a really good experience.

But if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish getting over the plague…

Why is it that when a client doesn’t like the resume I send him, he writes back to ask if I’ve “got anyone else?”

Hey, dumbass, your position has been open for two months and you haven’t liked any of the responses you’ve gotten. I sent you a resume, and you didn’t like it. Fair enough, but why are you now assuming that I have a whole raft of other candidates that I’m just withholding from you? As if I have 10, and I’m just dribbling them out to you one at a time to amuse myself.

As I have said to others, I make money by putting people to work. If I had some other candidate, I would surely send it to you.

If your job has been open that long and you haven’t found the right person to fill it, either you aren’t looking hard enough, your requirements are poorly thought-out, you aren’t paying enough, or you aren’t properly evaluating the resumes you get.

I went to the inaugural meeting of the DC Chapter of the Social Media Club last night, hosted at the local offices of Fleishman Hillard. Those of you who have been following for a while already know about my frustration with going to these events which purport to discuss the impact of social media (whatever that is) and then turn into Blogging 101, in which some old fogey has to be taught what a trackback is, or that it is indeed possible for a company blog to link to a company press release.

So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I went in to this thing, hoping against hope that it would be valuable and interesting to someone like me, who has been blogging for several years in one form or another, and who is interested in the applications of it from some perspective other than, “You mean people WRITE? On the INTERNET?”

I was not disappointed. It was a roomful of people who “get it,” to, I suspect, varying degrees, but who nonetheless could contribute meaningfully to the conversation, whether from the individual blogger perspective, a marketing perspective, or a public relations perspective. Refreshing. I’ve been saying for quite some time that it’s as if DC woke up 8 months ago and figured out that the Internet was useful, so it’s nice to see that DC has been a quick study.

I work most commonly with the kinds of clients who were represented in that room, so it was also helpful for me as a third-party-recruiter to learn more about a business that I have otherwise only the barest of backgrounds in. Dinner afterward was equally educational- a couple of advertising/marketing/PR types sat around with beers in their hands, talking about their work. Very interesting, and I hope they weren’t too offended at my BLATANT listening-in.

My major food-for-thought from the evening’s conversation was this:

PR and marketing have a terrible reputation among people, and bloggers in particular. Fundamentally, however, they exist so that companies and public figures have the opportunity to have their side of issues heard, and to match the value of a product or service with the people who will benefit most from that value, respectively. These are intrinsically reasonable, and even beneficial goals. The problem is that so much of PR and marketing has become about “message control” and “driving the conversation,” when the whole joy of “social media” is that the conversation is much less controllable now. We’re people, we don’t LIKE having our conversations driven by others, after all.

But that said, what DO we want from PR? Are we prepared to stop freaking out every time someone in PR or marketing wants to engage with us? We don’t want control, but aside from that, we can’t really tell PR and marketing what we DO want. So maybe we ought to dial-down the knee-jerk hatred a little bit long enough to ask ourselves what we would prefer? If blogging is supposed to help companies engage their customers directly, we should, you know, figure out how to let them.