ajcjobs > BlogBreak > Archives > 2007 > May
May 2007
Should I declare ‘email bankruptcy’?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Complaints about email overload is a popular topic these days.It is not uncommon for people to receive over 200 emails a day.Much of the wasted time is spent on dealing with non essential information and spam has not gone away.
Some folks have “hit bottom” and are declaring email bankruptcy, simply not responding to their emails. While I understand the frustration that can lead to this drastic measure, I think it causes more problems than it solves. Since email remains the main vehicle for business communication (how many voice mails do you get anymore?) you can’t stop off the train completely. Communication is a process between two parties and by stepping away you are not solving anything other than providing short term relief for yourself.
So if that is not the answer, then what?Productivity experts suggest that you use technology more wisely to manage the overload.I think that if we can change some of our own habits, it may just catch on and we will all be better off.
Here are a few of tips:
- Beware of “reply all.” You should have a good reason for copying people on emails. Ask yourself - do they NEED to be copied? Don’t clutter their inbox.
- Keep your inbox clean and to no more than one screen. Take actions on items and move emails to folders.
- Use descriptive subject lines. You may not even need to put anything in the body of the mail.
- State the purpose of the email in the first sentence
- Keep it short and use bullet points
- Don’t waste time by sending an email that just says “thanks!”
- Don’t use emails if a conversation is open to interpretation or if you have bounced back and forth a few times. Clarity is needed so pick up the phone or talk face to face.
- Contact your IT resources to block spam.
I would love to hear your suggestions and email pet peeves. Help us all get back some much needed time!
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Skill games & water cooler talk
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I met some business people who are in the online skill games business. Online skill-based games are a growing genre of browser-based games, which are electronic games played online via the Internet. They represent a part of the worldwide growth of social networks.
Two of the current big player’s sites are http://www.king.com and http://www.worldwinner.com.
In many offices, the current selection of games is kept off limits by the company’s computer firewall. If the new wave of games and social networks have their way, computer firewalls will not be a deterrent.
There are plenty of organizations that have policies of no web surfing during working hours. However, the enforcement of such policies in many cases is based on personal ethics. What are your ethics and practices?
We all either have or can take breaks. There’s also plenty of reason for downtime depending upon the work demands of the company or our given work situation. Back in the day, there was plenty of wasted work time with water cooler talk. Now surfing the net or and skill games may be replacing down time at the water cooler.
Besides, when we congregated at the water cooler, we talked behind the backs of everyone who wasn’t at the water cooler, including our boss! When we’re playing skills-based games, at least we’re not creating destructive office gossip!
What’s going on in your office? Who’s gaming, who’s talking and who’s working?
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Congratulations, Graduate - now find a job!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just when you got comfortable in high school, it was time to make the move to college. Likewise, just when you began to feel like the big man (or woman) on your college campus, it was time to make your way into the real world because your four years in college were ending. By the end of your college career, you have been in some type of school for over 15 years. How do you make the next step in your life? If you are going into the job market for the first time, the following are a few tips to help you get on track. The initial move is the hardest one to make, but following this advice should help you out!
Get ready for the part
Remember always being able to spot a freshman a mile away? The same goes for newcomers to the job market if they do not prepare themselves for their new place in life. First, get a good, clean haircut. When you are in college, you can get away with messy, unkempt hair. But, just like the days of pulling all nighters and endless multiple-choice tests, the days when shaggy was appealing are over. Next, invest in an interview outfit that can also be worn once you start your job. Purchase something you feel comfortable in, but that also shows your desire to be a professional. A new, crisp look will boost your own confidence, as well as give others confidence in your abilities. When employees see that you are willing to go to the effort to look your best, they know you will go the extra mile once you get the job. When you look good, you feel good. When you feel good, you interview even better! Arm yourself for the unexpected interview
You never know when you are going to be tapped for an interview, especially when you are an active member of a professional organization. When you get invited to interview, you need to be prepared with a stunning resume and cover letter. Your resume should always be prefaced by a cover letter that states your intentions and briefly highlights your interest in the company. Your resume is essential because it is your personal marketing package. Start working on your resume early. You will find that it is much easier to simply update your resume periodically than it is to have to start from scratch when you try to get that first interview!
Reserve your right to be picky
It is a common occurrence to get so caught up in the confidence boost of your first job offer that you take the job without heavily weighing whether or not the job might really be the one for you. Hesitate in taking the first job you are offered unless you feel certain that it is exactly what you want. College graduates` expectations are higher than ever, so do not compromise yours for the first offer you receive. Allow yourself to feel proud, and use your new confidence to wow prospective employers in future interviews.
Everyone knows that starting out in the job market can be a scary thing. Whether you are planning to be a millionaire by age 30, or you want to work for a non-profit organization for minimal pay, but maximum satisfaction, your expectations should remain high. After following these tips, you will have put in maximum effort to impress prospective employers. Now, it is their turn to impress you.
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Summer jobs: The good, the bad and the ugly!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“Ah, summer break!” or for some college students it’s more like, “Ugh, summer job!” Right about now, most universities have wrapped up spring semester classes and hundreds of thousands of college students are entering the workforce. Some will be starting their full-time dream jobs; others will be taking in-between jobs to hold them over until they find something in their field of study. Still, others will be working for a few months, only to return to school in the fall.
College students who are back home for the summer, as well as those who are staying in town for the summer, will be filling out applications and revising their resumes and cover letters over the next couple of weeks. Many of them will spend another summer working at the mall, or at the local bar and grille, where they’ll be able to sock away some fast cash to pay for next semester’s books or this summer’s trips to the lake. Others will have sought out internships that are related to their major, giving them a head start on their careers because of the valuable real-world experience they’ll gain.
Whether we end up loving them or hating them, summer jobs provide us with life and work experiences that we never forget. For the lucky and the dedicated, summer jobs can be a springboard to a successful career. I can recall (in sometimes painful detail) each summer job I’ve ever had. Although none of them turned into a full time job for me after college, I can look back now and see the long term value in each.
Have you had a summer job that turned into your ticket to success? How about a summer job that was so miserable you wished you were back in school? Any lessons learned?
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Vacation or bust!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This Sunday’s ajcjobs lead story dealt with the great disparity between Americans’ average number of vacation days per year and those of people in European countries. Reporter Laura Raines cites 2007 statistics from the World Tourism Organization that reveal some amazing (and, depending on which side of “the pond” you’re on, quite depressing!) facts:
- Average vacation days in the United States: 13
- In Italy: 42
- In France: 37
- In Germany: 35
- In the United Kingdom: 28
When you are back from Disney World and punching the time clock again, the Italian who was beside you in line for Space Mountain could stay for almost another whole month.
Are we Americans getting ripped off? The tendency in America is, for better or worse, to insist that our way is the best way, but admit it: You’re a little jealous of how vacation time is handled in Europe, aren’t you?
With all the focus on work/life balance these days, it would seem that 50 weeks of work to two weeks of vacation is ever-so-slightly imbalanced. And yet, several European expatriates are quoted in the article as saying that adjusting to a huge decrease in paid vacation days is worthwhile because they value the job opportunities and other aspects of working in the United States.
The article also points out that many Americans don’t even use the vacation days they do earn. Because of job stress, insecurity, a desire to impress or whatever other reasons, many perfectly good vacation days go unused. Would we just waste them if we had more vacation days?
What do you think? Do we get enough vacation days in the United States? Are we working too hard, or do we just not value leisure time as much as Europeans do? How do you get the maximum benefit out of the vacation time you do have? Would you trade some of your pay or other benefits for an increase in vacation days? Or are you one of those Americans who let vacation days lapse, and, if so, why?
If you are from Europe or have lived in another country for a while, how did you adjust to the precipitous dropoff in vacation time? Is it really worth it to you to forgo vacation time to work in the United States? What did you do with all your vacation time when you had a lot more of it?
Getting caught in the act!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Cheating is rampant in high schools and on college campuses. Up to 70% of kids say they cheat in high school. By the end of college, 80% admit to cheating in one or more ways to get better grades. Just when you think you’ve heard or seen it all, another technology or idea comes along that makes it easier or at least innovative to cheat and not get caught. Plagiarism, using a ghost writer, text messaging, phone-camera technology, and ipods all have been used to cheat and to avoid detection. One semester, I found myself googling my student’s papers to catch them in using undocumented work. Some students surf the net for the answers while testing in supposedly secure testing centers. In most universities, for each innovation, there’s a professor out there looking for a new way to counter it - busting cheaters is a new enterprise in itself.
Now, what does this have to do with BlogBreak? I’m wondering how much of this cheating transfers into the work world? Does the ethical lapse on the college campus translate into cheating on the job? Probably.
On the job, cheaters steal the words, thoughts and ideas of others. Have you ever used company time to do something totally unrelated to work? Are you taking a “mental health day” here and there or carrying home a few paper clips, pens or maybe even a printer or copier? Skimming off petty cash, padding expense reports, using company vehicles for family time are all fairly common. What’s to say the next step isn’t fraud or embezzlement?
Cheating is not only related to stealing words, money or workplace items, it can also mean padding or lying on your resume. How often has that been in the news lately?
Cheating in one way or the other permeates every profession. Business seems to have the worse reputation but it’s there in churches and in social organizations.
Is it possible to do business these days without cheating? I’m wondering just how many of us could say that we’re squeaky clean? I’d like to hear some anonymous confessions, how many of you out there cheated in college, cheat on the job or cheat in your marriage? Is cheating as widespread as the “experts” say?
Paying a compliment too much trouble?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In one of my diversity facilitation training sessions, participates debated on whether it is okay to compliment co-workers and subordinates on their clothing. Most of the men said, it is not okay to give compliments, while all of the women said there is nothing wrong with complimenting people on their clothing.
Is this one of those men are from Mars and women are from Venus things? It turns out that there was a situation where a manager complimented one of his female employees and she filed a sexual harassment charge. The employee claimed that she felt uncomfortable receiving compliments from her boss about her clothing. The word spread quickly through the company that complimenting on clothing is not acceptable.
Well first, we know that it is not what you say, but how you say it. I am not sure how the manager phrased the compliment, but, sometimes I think we overreact and take things too far. If the compliment was delivered inappropriately, the response should be, “I would prefer that you not provide me with compliments”. Another approach would be to just ask, “What did you mean by that?”
Open dialogue can go along way.
Have you ever landed yourself in trouble because you paid someone a compliment? Or did you someone offend you?
How are you doing?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve been noticing recently how carelessly we Georgians abuse the English language. I’m not referring to Southern accents, as I have one myself. Everyone has some kind of accent. I’m talking about the over-use of common phrases or annoying techno-jargon that has crept into our daily speech.
Most egregious in my mind, is the phrase, “How are you?” Rarely do people say “Hello!” without saying “How are you?” Almost as bad is the bland, automatic response of “Fine,” or the grammatically incorrect response of “Good.”
I can’t count the number of business calls I’ve received where the caller will say, “Hi. How are you?” and will then proceed to launch immediately into a two minute explanation of why they’re calling, without the slightest pause for me respond to their question.
These callers might just as well pick up the phone and say, “Hi, I’m going to ask you how you’re doing because somehow I think I’m supposed to. But I don’t really care how you’re doing. So, I’m just going to move on and tell you why I’m calling, because really, this conversation is all about me anyway.” The effect is exactly the same.
In business communication, it is off-putting to the person to whom you’re speaking, to ask such a question without listening to their response. Your attempt at politeness by asking how someone is doing has backfired on you, and you now seem rude.
Additionally, when someone asks you how you are doing, the correct answer is not “I’m doing good.” Grammatically, to say that you are doing “good” implies that you are doing good things, like feeding the hungry, saving baby kittens and recycling.
You may, in fact, be doing good things, but the proper and grammatically correct answer to this question is, “I’m doing well, thank you.” The word “well” describes how you’re doing and indicates that things in your life are satisfactory.
In reality, when you’re calling a stranger, it is quite presumptuous to ask how they’re doing. It’s too familiar. You can safely assume that if the person doesn’t know you, they’re probably not interested in sharing with you how they’re doing. If you must say something besides “Hello,” a simple “Good Afternoon,” will suffice.
Over-using the question, “How are you?” is not only annoying; it can be interpreted as rude. Certainly, this is only one example of over-used phrases and business jargon that pollutes the English language today. So, next time someone asks “How are you?” and you actually have the chance to respond, don’t say, “I’m doing good, but I’ve got my plate too full and I’m going to have to circle back to run some new ideas up the flagpole, to get my manager’s buy-in on hiring an assistant.”
Are there other words and phrases common in business communication that annoy you?
Which ones are the worst offenders?
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Job search strategies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many people in the career services arena will quote statistics boasting that the most popular method of finding a job is networking. Often I have heard it quoted that between 70-85% of the job seekers find their job through someone they know. That would indicate that networking is the most productive activity in a job search.
Although I agree with the fact that you must actively network while you are job hunting, I know the internet has also become an instrumental tool in any search. Just like browsing the classified ads in the Sunday paper used to be ritual for every professional contemplating a job change, I think you need to browse the internet for jobs every day if you aren’t totally satisfied with your job.
According to a study by Conference Board in November of 2006, jobseekers reported that the internet was the method that produced the most job offers, outperforming other job search strategies such as networking, newspaper, and other sources including employment agencies. It’s true that because there are so many people applying to any single job posting you aren’t likely to hear from all the companies or recruiting firms that you present your resume to over the internet.
However, you will not get a 100% response rate from any job search method. That is why serious jobseekers actively utilize each one of these job search methods. If you are going to use the internet as a job search tool, make sure your resume is well designed, states your credentials in a meaningful way, and targets the jobs you are pursuing with ‘key words.’ If you pursue a job that you are not qualified to succeed in, you will likely get no response and the rejection becomes discouraging.
As a recruiter, I receive countless resumes from jobseekers that have no background in the areas we are requesting as essential to that job and wonder why they wasted their time. For instance, recently we advertised for a highly technical position and I received resumes from people whose experience included everything from a real estate agent to a part-time Santa Claus. It is not that being those things are negatives, it is that their resumes didn’t highlight the aspects of their credentials that were most relevant to my posting.
You have to structure a resume that captures the most relevant portion of your background in the first half of the first page of your resume, or it will likely get dismissed without further consideration. If a real estate background or part-time Santa Claus role doesn’t relate to the job opportunity, it is either best to eliminate it or de-emphasize it at the end of the resume. If you include unrelated things at the top of your resume, your resume is likely to go to the bottom of the pile. Be strategic in your resume preparation, and be persistent about surfing the net for the right job.
Together, these two strategies can land you a perfect new job. If you need to learn more about writing a better resume, attend an Execume seminar on May 17, 2007. For more information go to http://www.execume.com/_events/default.php
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Recognizing National Nurses Week
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For nurses, National Nurses Week (May 6-12) sometimes feels like an empty gesture because usually the only people celebrating and honoring nurses are …. Nurses.
Nursing is one of those professions you don’t think of unless you need one. When surveyed, the public says that nursing is the most ethical profession in the U.S. Beyond that, it’s an easy job that most anyone can do, right? NOT true.
As the largest profession in the health care workforce, nurses are often taken for granted. Nursing looks like a lot of physical work involving little more than following doctor’s orders. In reality, nursing requires high-level critical thinking and the ability to make decisions that can result in life or death. People know when they’ve had a “good” nurse but what they don’t know is education and thought processes behind the care that makes them feel good and recover.
Good nurses continually observe the patient to determine how they’re doing and what needs to be done to make a difference. Questions like “Is his pain relieved?”, “Is she responding to the new medicine appropriately?”, “What else can I do to make him feel better?”, or “Should I begin resuscitation?” are always on a nurse’s mind.
Nursing is a national resource that we’ve not valued or cared for as we should have. A few years ago, we suddenly realized that our nursing workforce was aging and fewer young people were entering nursing. In a relatively short time, the crisis became severe; huge media campaigns were mounted and students began choosing nursing in unprecedented numbers - great!
Not really, we forgot the infrastructure. School buildings are outdated, faculty salaries are low, and the nursing faculty is also aging. A recent survey found that 25% of the nurse educators in Georgia will probably be gone within 5 years - due to retirement.
The reality is that we cannot admit more nursing students than we are already admitting. Most nursing schools now turn away from 5 to 20 students for every ONE they admit. Getting into a nursing school is as hard or harder than entering law or medicine.
Until recently, no one paid much attention to the problem and rather than deal with the infrastructure problems, many health care organizations have resorted to recruiting nurses from other countries. Why aren’t we supporting the education of our own young people to solve this crisis?
So, don’t neglect the nurses who make a difference in your life and the lives of your family. Don’t wait for Nurse Week each year. Find a nurse to celebrate with this week and say thanks for a job well done. Recognize that nursing is a national treasure that needs a little nurturing too!
Pros and cons of working from home…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Many of us would never dream of having it any other way. Walking downstairs sure does seem to beat a hectic drive on I-285. One change that has occurred over the last several years has been the wide range of people who are working in an office at home at least some of the week.
It is mostly terrific for the usual reasons - working in your sweats, toiling any time of day and losing that awful Atlanta commute. Even a trip to the gym and errands on off “peak” times are advantages.
What are the drawbacks?
Home based workers cite loneliness, the lack of socialization and being out of the company loop. They also sometimes feel (and act?) less effective in a casual environment. Others have a hard time separating home and work. Who hasn’t gotten distracted by the piles of laundry or cringed when a barking dog or crying child interfered with a client phone call?
So what do you find are the pros and cons of working from home?
Ever been skipped over for a promotion?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Imagine working at your company for 8 long years and thinking you deserve a nice big promotion for all your efforts.
Then one day, you suddenly learn that you were passed over because there is a new manager at the top of the food chain.
What do you do? Should you talk to the new manager? Try to convince them to promote you instead of the slacker that was chosen above you?
Would you start looking for a new job and leave right away?
Ever been slighted like this at work? What tactics did you use to deal with the situation?
