TOP TIPS

10 Tips for Career Success
By Alvah Parker

1. Find ways to learn continuously.
2. Find ways to improve whatever you do. Be willing to incorporate the new ideas that you learn in #1.
3. Do your work completely and with pride.
4. Be true to your own values.
5. Clear up those irritations (energy drains) so that you can devote your energy to your work.
6. Practice self-care so that you feel good about yourself.
7. Keep work in perspective so that you have time for other parts of your life (family, friends, hobbies, volunteer work).
8. Listen carefully to everyone. Managers need to walk around and talk to employees and customers.
9. Network within your company and outside.
10. Delegate tasks when appropriate and empwer those doing the work to do it their own way.

COMPLIMENTARY RESUME CRITIQUE

In today's competitive environment, a well-written resume is critical if you want to get noticed. If your current resume isn't generating interest among executive recruiters and potential employers, you may want to consider hiring a professional resume writer.

Kennedy Information, the publisher of Career Tips and Tactics, has partnered with a leading resume-writing firm that specializes in helping executives and career-minded professionals get noticed. You're invited to receive a free critique - conducted via the telephone - of your current resume. If you choose, you can also ask the professional resume writer to provide you with a price quote if you determine that your resume could benefit from an overhaul.

To receive your risk-free telephone consultation please email a copy of your resume to resumecritique@executiveagent.com

© 2005 Kennedy Information, Inc., a BNA Company.

HR INTERVIEWS CAN BE SENIOR EXECS' WATERLOO

Ms. Ryan, a former corporate executive, speaks and writes about workplace issues. She is the founder of WorldWIT, an online-networking organization for professional women in business and technology. liz@worldwit.org

Experienced executives face a formidable hiring market today, but they have an advantage over other candidates: They're accustomed to talking to other high-level people. Once you reach senior-management levels, conversations with your peers typically are comfortable experiences. It's unlikely that the accomplished job seeker has gotten where he or she is without excellent communication and conversational skills plus the ability to build rapport with others.

But while many more senior folk in the job market are well-prepared for interviews with peers and prospective superiors, they often lack the ability to talk with the human-resources employee who stands between them and the hiring manager. Marketing execs know how to talk to marketing vice presidents. Financial professionals know how to talk to chief financial officers. However, not knowing how to converse with the HR screener who's working on the opening can hurt them badly.

The fact is, most corporations use screeners to weed out candidates at some stage in the hiring process. They do this to streamline procedures and save their senior executives time. And because HR staffs, like those of every other department, are stretched thin, a young and junior HR employee could be making a "go" or "no-go" decision about your resume right now.

What's worse, you may have to undergo one or more HR interviews before you get to see a hiring manager. It's alarming to think that a person with perhaps two years of business experience is making quick and unilateral decisions about whether a senior-level candidate stays in the candidate pool. But it's common practice, so be ready for it.

Alienating Behaviors

Don't alienate the HR interviewer right off the bat by showing huffiness or impatience with the process or with the unlucky HR aide who's doing the screening. And don't treat the interview as a benefits-information meeting and ask the HR interviewer a dozen questions about the dental plan and none about the role. The HR screener is in the mix specifically to weed out candidates. As a job seeker, you need to be just as gracious, impressive and professional in your interactions with HR folks as you would be with a future boss or you won't make the cut.

If this seems like obvious advice, why do senior-level job candidates routinely do the following?

Ask their HR interviewer: "Are you scheduling Mr. Smith's interviews? Let me give you some dates that I'm available."

Ask the HR interviewer sensitive compensation and reporting questions, as though he or she is a wooden post who won't immediately relay such inquiries back to the hiring executive.

Call the HR employee two days after the HR interview to angrily inquire about the status of their candidacy.

Treat the HR interview as a company pre-orientation, bringing a list of questions about work attire, travel policies and local eateries, rather than acknowledge that the HR screener is trying to evaluate the candidate.

Say, "I can go over that whole area with [Charlie Smith] when I meet him -- it's very technical," or something equally condescending.

Vital Intelligence Gathering

As a young HR professional, I used to harbor an evil, secret glee when senior-level candidates would make such blunders with me. Our company viewed how an executive job candidate treated a junior employee when it seemed that nobody was watching as a glimpse of the person's natural mode. It became vital intelligence about the candidate's hierarchical bent or ability to work across levels.

HR professionals are just waiting to skewer candidates who fail these unobtrusive personality tests. Don't fall into that trap. Treat every HR interaction the same way that you would treat a one-on-one interaction with the person you hope to work for. Don't ever talk down to, berate or belittle an HR person during the hiring process. Assume that they know a lot about the business and your prospective role. Use your interactions to help them learn more but not by being preachy. Take the HR employee to lunch if it seems appropriate and isn't overreaching. Return their calls promptly and don't treat them as if they're merely administrative assistants (of course, it's worth examining how you treat these employees, too).

I'll never forget how one gentleman reacted after receiving our company's "No thanks" letter. When I took his call, he was sputtering with anger.

"When you called me last week, I had no idea you were screening me!" he exclaimed.

"I'm sorry for that confusion," I replied. "When we spoke about the role and your background, what did you think was the purpose of the call?"

"I thought you were giving me the courtesy of a preinterview HR benefits briefing," he said, "the kind of thing that people at my level expect."

"But surely," I replied, "based on the questions that I asked you, the review of your background and your accomplishments and approaches, you thought there was a reason for all of that discussion?"

There was silence on his end of the line. "I had no idea you were in a decision-making role," he eventually responded.

And there's the rub. Assume that everyone you talk to at a prospective employer is in a decision-making role. Because chances are, they are.