ROWE Warrior Road Trip

Posted on March 14, 2010 by jessicahlawrence

SXSW Interactive has been described as “sleep away camp for nerds”, but it is also a giant mind-meld of the most innovative thinking in the country. I had planned on coming even before finding out I was going to be on a panel, but being here is even more exciting because I get to share my passion for changing the way we work and about results-only work environment (ROWE) in particular, in an official setting.

Results-Only Work Environment: Why It Works

Monday, March 15, 2010 – 11 am – Hilton D

More info at Go ROWE

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Don’t Let Them See You Cry

Posted on February 17, 2010 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from Jessica’s “The Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press.

I had told myself I was going to hold it in. Thirty minutes earlier, as I put the finishing touches on what I was going to say, I felt sad, but not quite on the verge of tears. Then, as I stood in front of our organization’s 60 staff, box of tissues close at hand, I opened my mouth to speak. Only a couple of words made it out before I became barely audible through my tears. I looked around the room and my teary eyes were met with 60 other pairs of wet eyes staring back at me. I had just announced an almost 20% reduction in force, and there was no way any of us were going to get through something that difficult without crying.

I had sought advice from colleagues at other organizations before making the announcement and almost all of them had either implied that I should hold back my tears or had flat out told me not to cry. Had I just broken a major rule of business? Had I just proven why many people say women should not be business leaders – because we are “weak” and can not get through important business dealings without crying?

On the Martha Stewart version of the television show “The Apprentice”, Stewart told a female contestant “Cry and you are out of here. Women in business don’t cry, my dear.” And in a recent promotional ad for the new show “Kell on Earth”, tough-as-nails fashion show producer Kelly Cutrone tells her staff to go outside if they need to cry. The world has conditioned women and men to believe that crying in business is bad.

I, however, think that the perceived weakness of crying at work is one of the strengths that women bring to the table. It brings humanity back into business, when business is so often against letting people feel normal, human emotions. If you have to do something like a reduction in force, you and everyone around you is going to be sad, even the people who get to keep their jobs. Avoiding any show of emotion in the process makes you seem inhumane and heartless, even if you are not.

Part of the problem with most discussions of crying in business is that everyone seems to lump all crying into the category of being a career hazard. Crying at work is all bad. Period. I do not think the answer is that simple. There are times when crying in business is a bad thing, but there are also times when letting the tears flow when they want to is the right thing to do.

In the “ok in business” category I would put the crying that occurs when something truly sad is happening – people are losing their jobs or something awful has happened to an employee or their family. Also in the “ok in business” category would be crying out of pure love and adoration or in a truly moving situation – I almost always get teary eyed when I talk about how amazing our staff are or when I have to say good-bye to someone at a retirement party.

On the other hand, there are times when crying in business is not such a good idea. In general, I would recommend against crying in front of people who report to you (unless the crying falls into the “ok in business” category previously mentioned). Part of anyone being successful in business is being able to keep it together under immense stress. As the leader of our organization, it would start to make employees nervous if I went to the people who report to me and started crying because I could not handle the stress. That is why they say that CEOs and human resources professionals have lonely jobs – the people in those positions do not have as many people to turn to within the organization when they need to let their emotions hang out.

To me, crying should not be used as technique to get people to react a certain way, or to rack up the sympathy points. It should come naturally and be done openly when showing that you are human is the right thing to do. Thinking back to the day I announced our reduction in force, I would not change anything about how I reacted. So what if 60 people saw me cry? At least they know that I have a heart. Now, where are those tissues?

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Why Your Customers Break Up with You

Posted on January 20, 2010 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from Jessica’s “The Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press

No matter business you are in, over the past year, you have probably had at least a few of your customers break up with you. Maybe it was more than a few. Each of those lost customers has cost your company money. You do not need anyone telling you that it is almost always bad to lose customers. You get that part. The bigger question is: what are you doing to find out why? Fortunately for you, unlike in real dating relationships, the answer is probably not as incurable as “he is just not that into you.”  So, why do your customers leave?

You can keep your customers for a while by trying to offer superior product. Studies show, however, that only 14% of customers leave because they are dissatisfied with your product.  You can also try winning the battle for customers through price, although continually lowering your price isn’t necessarily the best option. The same study also shows that only 9% of your customers leave because they are lured away by a competitor. Why then do customers leave? Studies show that 68% of customers leave due to the indifferent attitude of a company employee.

If you have heard that statistic before, then what are you doing about it? I had heard it before too, but an ah-ha moment the other day made the statistic finally come alive for me. I was having an interesting conversation with a Zappos.com employee when we got on the subject of volunteer retention. For Girl Scouts, and many other organizations who rely on volunteers, volunteer retention and customer retention are one in the same. As I talked to him about what we do to retain our customers, I realized something incredibly important: when we really look at why our volunteers leave the organization it is not because they stopped caring about girls or that they stopped caring about our mission (our product). They leave because the costs start outweighing the benefits. They have to complete too much paperwork or they do not get a response to their question in a timely manner or they do not feel supported enough.

The customer of a business gets benefits from being a customer: a product they like, a price they can afford, a tool that make their life easier. The problem is that those benefits can be easily overtaken by the costs. If the customer has to wait in a long line or receives unfriendly service or waits too long to get a call back, the benefits start to shrink in comparison to the costs. Despite the customer still liking your product or your price, they are no longer willing to be your customer because the costs now outweigh the benefits.

This is why it is so important to understand why your customers leave. When we started asking our customers about what they were most frustrated with, an overabundance of required forms and paperwork was at the top of the list. As we continue to ask questions, we are able to work specifically on fixing the things that most often tip the cost benefit scale in the direction of the customer leaving. This level of listening is incredibly important.

An article by Anna Thibodeaux in CRM Weekly summarized a recent study: “According to a 2006 survey released by a group within the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a typical business only hears from 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers; the other 96 percent leave quietly. Of that 96 percent, 68 percent never reveal their dissatisfaction because they perceive an attitude of indifference in the owner, manager or employee. But a typical dissatisfied customer will tell eight to 10 people about their experience. One in five will tell 20.” You want your customers to tell you about why they are unhappy, not 10 of their friends.

If someone were to break up with you in the dating world, you would want to know why. You should be asking your customers why as well. You could even go one step further and start asking questions and listening before the relationship turns sour. Which is a good practice no matter what type of relationship we are talking about.

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The Challenge of Execution Starts with Strategy

Posted on December 30, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from my “Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press

The world is full of thoughtful strategy. Companies spend hundreds of hours every year and significant financial resources on ensuring that they have crafted a strategy that will lead them to success. When so much of a company’s intellectual capital is dedicated to building its strategic foundation, why does the execution of a strategy so often fall short?

First, crafting a strategy feels deceptively simple. It is a finite process. It involves a beginning (brainstorming, data gathering, conducting a situation analysis), a middle (analyzing and discussing data), and an end (crafting and writing the strategy). Even though this formal process may be revisited every few years, writing strategy is not work that a company has to do every day.

Execution, on the other hand, requires daily recalibration. If a strategy is going to be executed effectively, every moving part of an organization has to be aligned to delivering on that strategy, every single day. Even in small companies, it is difficult to align each department and staff person with the overall strategy of the company on a consistent basis.

It turns out that this challenge of execution can actually be tied back to an underlying problem with strategy. Often times, strategies sound visionary, but do not paint a clear picture for the individual employee of how they fit into the strategy. They may not see how their daily work needs to change or how they need to align themselves differently with another department in order to execute the new strategy appropriately.

Spending time at Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas back in October, I witnessed how a large company can effectively align all of its employees to its strategy. Zappos started as online shoe retailer and has come to be known not only for the shoes and other wares it sells online, but also for its phenomenal customer service, its creative culture, and its fast growth. Zappos’ first step in setting their strategy is defining their “BHAG” (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), which at Zappos is focused on growth in sales.

The BHAG is posted throughout the Zappos offices, complete with a graphic representation of the BHAG as a big, hairy beast, displayed proudly on the walls. Once the BHAG is established, the senior leadership at Zappos crafts plans for how each of their teams will contribute to achieving the BHAG. Each subsequent manager down the line finds a new way of refining the presentation to their group of employees to ensure that every employee knows what the BHAG is and knows how the work they do on a daily basis will contribute to achieving the BHAG. The employees in sports merchandising know what their growth in sales needs to be and the customer service representatives know what their level of performance needs to be in order to reach the company’s overall goal.

Taking a big goal and breaking it down into smaller, easily executable pieces is a daily occurrence at Zappos and is a skill that the company helps its employees develop. Zappos onsite coach, Dr. Vik, helps employees address a variety of personal challenges in their lives, from losing weight to reducing credit card debt. He teaches them the technique of setting their own personal BHAGs, and then slowly chipping away at their BHAG in small steps: doing 10 sit-ups a day or volunteering on a weekend instead of shopping. As employees see that this technique of accomplishing major personal goals one step at a time works, they start applying the same concept to the company’s BHAG. Everyone is focused on the BHAG and knows how they can help the company reach it, and it pays off.  Zappos recently achieved a huge BHAG – reaching $1 billion in annual sales.

Successful execution requires a strategy that is relevant to every employee. Although there are many factors that influence the outcome of execution, the rate of success increases dramatically when each employee can clearly see how they can contribute to achieving the company’s goals. How relevant is your BHAG?

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Debating Computer Restrictions

Posted on December 23, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from my “Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press

I was about to write this column focusing solely on how companies should stop babysitting employees’ use of computers – that they should stop blocking websites, stop blocking Facebook and MySpace, and stop restricting use of programs like Firefox. I recently read Farhad Manjoo’s great article – “Unchain the Office Computers!” – on Slate.com and I was all ready to unleash my battle cry of computer freedom, when a nagging memory of a recent news story stopped me from moving forward with my single-sided argument.

When the story first broke in October about the two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport by 150 miles, some of the blame was placed on them being distracted by using their laptops while piloting the aircraft. Although it now looks as if that might have been a more minor factor in the incident, it got me thinking about the other possible circumstances in which restrictions on the use of computers might help avert substantial disasters.

In his article on Slate.com, Majoo argues that doctors and nurses in hospitals, for instance, have received enough training and are skilled enough to juggle using an instant messenger program while they are completing their other work. What happens though, when those doctors and nurses get so engrossed in the messages they are sending back and forth that they don’t respond to a call quite as fast or they don’t get to a patient’s bedside as quickly as usual or they write the dosage of a medication down wrong?

There are other situations too, where distractions would be dangerous. We probably don’t want 911 operators watching videos on YouTube or bus drivers sending text messages while they drive bus full of passengers down the freeway. So where is the line? How do we decide what the right level of restriction is?

It has to do with analyzing the benefits of limitation-free computer use versus the potential negative consequences of allowing employees to operate with access to everything on the Web. Unless there are situations in which computer-based distractions risk the lives or the well-being of employees or the general public, there is not a very strong argument for restricting computer use. At my company a few months ago, we were hit by a virus that was traced back to an employee’s use of MySpace, and although it did take some IT staff time to fix the problem, the incident did not warrant banning employees from using MySpace or any other social networking platform. Why?  Because the cost to fix the problem was small compared to the potential negative implications on our trust-based culture if strict restrictions were put in place. It made a lot more sense for us to educate our employees on how to look out for potential virus and spyware traps (like not clicking on ads about filling out a survey to win $10,000), then it did to restrict the use of a program that we actually promote using as a marketing tool for the organization.

If you are worried about your employees slacking off and wasting company time checking their Facebook pages, restricting access to Facebook is not going to solve the problem. It is not going to make them more engaged, productive employees. You are actually missing the much bigger picture. The bigger picture is that employees should not be measured by how much time they spend physically at the workplace or even what they spend their time doing. They should be measured by what they actually produce. If employees are measured in that way, then the time they spend on Facebook or Twitter does not matter, as long as they are still getting their work done.

Restricting employee access to websites that might be seen as time-wasters does nothing but create an environment in which the company slowly becomes the enemy of the employee. Restrictions that have no reasonable basis give employees the strong message that they are not trusted. Restrictions also stifle innovation. Innovative companies like Google place no restrictions on their employees’ computers, and neither do most of the large technology companies.  They understand innovation does not thrive in environment littered with fences and barriers.

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Policy Overkill

Posted on December 16, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from my “Practical Business Radical Column” in The Business Press

When new technology or use of technology is discovered, two things inevitably happen: first, people immediately find negative uses for it. Then second because of these people, companies around the world decide that this new discovery requires a policy. The policy starts simple, outlining the parameters for use of whatever this new discovery is – a computer, the Internet, e-mail. It protects the company. It protects the employees. It might even be effective until the pages of the policy begin multiplying like rabbits – 20 pages turn into 40 pages, which turn into 100 pages.   All of sudden the policy is so long that no employee actually reads it.

With social media quickly becoming the new national pastime, companies are rushing to put social media policies in place, some heading straight for policy overkill. Policies in general are often viewed as a way to control employee behavior – put a dress code policy in place, and employees are required  to dress a certain way. Companies who approach the development of a social media policy with the same end result in mind are misguided. Companies who believe that putting a 40-page social media policy in place is going to allow them to control what their employees say and do online are missing the point and losing out on the possibilities of social media. Social media is not about controlling the conversation, it is about being a part of the conversation and the conversation could benefit your company.

When I was crafting the social media policy for our company, I knew I didn’t want a 40-page document that would kill the spirit of social media participation. I found inspiration through IBM’s policy, which they openly publish on their website, and through a great post by Sharlyn Lauby on Mashable.com entitled “10 Must Haves for Your Social Media Policy.” I boiled the core ideas down to ten simple guidelines.

Here’s our policy (yes, this is the exact wording): First, tell the truth. Second, have a purpose. Like everything else in life, reaching your goals is a lot easier when you have some clue what you’re trying to accomplish. Then, add value. Bottom line: say something helpful, or witty, or informative. The world doesn’t need to know what you ate for breakfast this morning. Fourth, be authentic. This is not the place to develop an alter-ego. Let people know who you really are and what you do. Fifth, speak for yourself. Your opinions may not always be the same as the organization’s. And that’s cool. Just make sure that your presence in the social media world is in the first person – lots of “I” and not so much “we”. Sixth, play nice. Respect people. Don’t be mean. Don’t call people names. Don’t use racial slurs. Don’t use foul language. Don’t be a jerk.

Seventh, respect copyright and fair use. Don’t use people’s stuff without giving them credit (and don’t use stuff you’re not allowed to use). That’s just tacky. And in some cases, it also happens to be illegal. Eighth, if it’s confidential, keep it that way.
You don’t like people sharing your personal business without your permission. So if somebody has told you that information is confidential, keep it that way. Ninth, be social. Don’t be in a one-way social media relationship. If people comment on your blog, respond nicely to their comments. It’s called “social” media for a reason.

And finally, use common sense. We try to hire employees who have common sense and we trust them to use it. Think of social media as a giant world-wide billboard. What you post can be seen by anyone – your boss, your co-workers, your mom. You don’t need a poorly chosen Tweet to wreck havoc on the organization or your life.

That is it, our policy – simple, to the point, and actually encouraging employees to participate in social media. If you find that a significant number of employees are saying awful things about your company online, it is highly likely that there is something wrong with your company, not something wrong with your employees. Trying to stifle your employees (or your customers) will only make them speak up more loudly and more frequently. Your employees and your customers are the best tools you have for understanding how your business needs to improve. They are talking about you online whether you are listening or not. Don’t kill the conversation with a policy. Take a step back and listen instead.

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Entitled Millennials and their Expectations

Posted on November 18, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from my “The Practical Business Radical Column” in The Business Press

I’m a Millennial. Born between 1978 and 2000, we grew up in the midst of rapid change, fueled by technological innovation. Some people say that we act entitled and that we have high expectations of our employers. It seems, however, that earlier generations had bigger expectations of their employers than we do. Here are the things I do not expect: I do not expect anything to be permanent. I do not expect to work for the same place for the next 25 years. I do not expect the company I work for to take care of me in my old age. I do not expect to ever be able to truly retire. There used to be expectations of pensions and “permanent” jobs, and Millennials do not have those expectations.

That being said, there are things that I do expect. I expect to be paid fairly based on the value I add to the company I work for, no matter what my age is. I expect that the length of the ladder I have to climb to get to the top will get shorter and shorter based on my performance and will have nothing to do with how many years I work at the company. Given the fact that I have no expectation that I will ever be able to retire, I expect to have a job that I love doing every day, to the point that if I became a millionaire and no longer needed to work, I would still want to keep doing my job.

I expect that judgment of my performance will be based on measures that matter and not on arbitrary and empty measures like how many hours I spend at the office or what time I arrive in the morning. I expect that the company I work for will give my ideas equal consideration alongside the ideas of someone with longer tenure. I expect that I will be given the freedom to manage my own time and my own performance. I expect the company that I work for to trust me, respect me, and build a team of talented, passionate people for me to work with.

This may seem like a long list. But the difference between the Millennial’s list of expectations and previous generations’ list of expectations is the price tag. Other than the expectation of fair pay for my contributions, most of the things I expect from the company I work for do not require any money. I am not asking for a pension or a fancy retirement plan. Trust and respect do not cost anything. Giving me the opportunity to have my ideas heard or take on leadership roles actually have the potential of helping the company I work for improve its financial performance. Giving me control of my time can improve company productivity and innovation.

In addition to having expectations of the company that they work for, Millennials often have high expectations of themselves, and of how the work they do will contribute to society in some way. They are willing to do what it takes – including rewriting the rules – in order to have an impact. This willingness to do things differently and to be unconventional can create significant tension because traditional business is more about following a standard set of rules and processes. Sometimes it is hard for Millennials to understand why their perspectives might not make sense to everyone. When I speak about our Results-Only Work Environment, I am often surprised that not everyone in the audience jumps on board with the concept right away. It makes so much logical and business sense to me, that it is hard to understand why other people would not see it the same way. When Millennials face these types of hurdles we just keep working until we amass the evidence and support to change the game.

As the number of Millennials in the workforce continues to increase, companies that do not pay attention to their expectations (and the strengths they bring to the table) will fall further and further behind. The expectations of Millennials can result in changes to the work environment that benefit all of the generations in the workplace and the company itself. We might have a long list of expectations, but it is our expectations that will help raise the bar of performance for your company.

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The BBQ That Will Change Your Business

Posted on November 11, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

Reprinted from my “The Practical Business Radical” column in The Business Press

If you don’t think a BBQ can change your business, then you’ve never met Bernard Ross. A year and half ago, I attended an Association of Fundraising Professionals conference in San Diego. Unfortunately, for most of the conference, I felt like I was attending a history lesson: the same strategies and tactics repackaged under the false pretense of fancy new titles. Then I met Bernard Ross, the Director of the Management Centre in London, who is a loud Scotsman with a thick accent and a propensity for profanity, and the registration fee I had paid for the conference was instantly made worth it. He convinced me that what I needed to do to help move our organization forward was host a BBQ. Not just any BBQ would do. This BBQ needed to be a Sacred Cow BBQ.

The name may sound somewhat horrific, but the concept and the results are anything but. At the foundation of a Sacred Cow BBQ are an organization’s “sacred cows” – the rules that an organization follows, both written and unwritten, official and unofficial. Every organization has sacred cows, things that have become so engrained in an organization that no one can remember why the rule or procedure got developed in the first place. Sacred cows are the “we’ve always done it that way” elements of any business.

Not all sacred cows are bad. Sometimes sacred cows are good. There may be some things that you’ve always done that are actually effective and beneficial for you to keep doing and that in fact are what set your business apart from others (like In N’ Out Burger still using fresh potatoes for their french fries). The point of the Sacred Cow BBQ is to bring multiple stakeholders in your organization to the table to openly and honestly discuss all of your organization’s sacred cows – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Depending on the type of organization you run, a Sacred Cow BBQ would involve all levels and types of staff, customers, volunteers, clients, other businesses, and vendors. Although not necessary, it helps if you actually do host a real BBQ (people are more likely to come and actively participate if food is involved). The location for your BBQ will need at least one wall that can accommodate Post-It notes being stuck all over it.

Here are the Sacred Cow BBQ rules: each participant is given a pad of Post-It notes and a pen. Before any food is served, the participants anonymously write down as many of your organization’s sacred cows as they can think of, one per Post-It note. There is no judgment passed on the sacred cows they write down and it is acceptable if their sacred cow is the same as someone else’s. For each sacred cow that the participant writes down, they get one piece of BBQ. Their first sacred cow gets them a hamburger bun, their second gets them the hamburger, their third gets them condiments and hamburger toppings, their fourth gets them coleslaw, and so on. As the participants turn in their sacred cows in exchange for food, the sacred cows get posted on the wall. Before long, all of the stakeholders in your organization are staring at a wall covered in sacred cows.

As everyone enjoys their hard-earned meal, the session facilitators start the process of categorizing the sacred cows, grouping similar and duplicate sacred cows together. As this process takes place, patterns start to develop. It becomes clear what the organization’s biggest sacred cows are. For us, the most frequently listed sacred cow had to do with requiring volunteers to complete too many forms. After the sacred cows are categorized, the session facilitators lead a group discussion around the top five or ten sacred cows. Together the group talks about each sacred cow and debates whether it should be kept, modified or removed.

The discussion that occurs around a Sacred Cow BBQ is probably one of the most interesting discussions you’ll ever have in your organization. It provides clarity around what your organization values and what may be preventing your organization from growing or providing better products or services, and it gives you starting place to make changes. Since we knew that our volunteers were frustrated with forms (our biggest sacred cow), we embarked on a forms reduction project and brought the number of forms from 52 down to nine essential forms. That is how a BBQ can change your business. What are your sacred cows?

 

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I Heart Our Social Media Policy

Posted on August 9, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

I recently crafted this social media policy for our organization.I loved writing this policy. It was fun. That may sound weird, but it was cool to be able to write a policy with a little bit of personality. I heart our social media policy!

Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council’s Social Media Policy

We think social media is super cool. And so do our customers. We invite our employees to become social media butterflies…with the guidelines below in mind.

The Policy:
1. Tell the truth.
2. Have a purpose.
3. Add value.
4. Be authentic.
5. Speak for yourself.
6. Play nice.
7. Respect copyright and fair use.
8. If it’s confidential, keep it that way.
9. Be social.
10. Use common sense.

The Policy Explained:
1. Tell the truth.
No explanation needed.

2. Have a purpose.
Like everything else in life, reaching your goals is a lot easier when you have some clue what you’re trying to accomplish.

3. Add value.
Bottom line: say something helpful, or witty, or informative. The world doesn’t need to know what you ate for breakfast this morning.

4. Be authentic.
This is not the place to develop an alter-ego. Let people know who you really are and what you do.

5. Speak for yourself.
We know your opinions may not always be the same as the council’s. And that’s cool. Just make sure that your presence in the social media world is in the first person – lots of “I” and not so much “we”.

6. Play nice.
Respect people. Don’t be mean. Don’t call people names. Don’t use racial slurs. Don’t use foul language. Don’t be a jerk.

7. Respect copyright and fair use.
Don’t use people’s stuff without giving them credit (and don’t use stuff you’re not allowed to use). That’s just tacky. And in some cases, it also happens to be illegal.

8. If it’s confidential, keep it that way.
You don’t like people sharing your personal business without your permission. So if somebody has told you that information is confidential, keep it that way.

9. Be social.
Don’t be in a one-way social media relationship. If people comment on your blog, respond nicely to their comments. It’s called “social” media for a reason.

10. Use common sense.
We try to hire employees who have common sense and we trust them to use it. Think of social media as a giant world-wide billboard. What you post can be seen by anyone – your boss, your co-workers, your mom. You don’t need a poorly chosen Tweet to wreck havoc on the council or your life.

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Advice for the Interview Challenged

Posted on June 17, 2009 by jessicahlawrence

In the last week, we’ve received over 1,000 resumes for 26 open positions. In the last three days, I’ve interviewed over 60 candidates.

Impressive people? Some.

But mostly, I’m appalled.

Not so much by the candidates’ lack of skills, but by many candidates’ lack of any sense of job hunting and interviewing protocol. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

I’m so appalled in fact that I feel compelled to write a little “how to” for the job hunt/application/interview challenged:

  1. If you don’t have the basic qualifications for a position, please don’t apply. You may have a fantasy about wowing us so much with your fantastic personality that we’ll forget about the fact that you don’t have basic skills, like using a computer. Not so much.
  2. Only apply for positions that have job duties that you are actually willing to do. Don’t apply to be a receptionist if you only like working by yourself and don’t like interacting with others (true story).
  3. If you’re going to provide us with your e-mail address, make sure it’s appropriate. “Sassygirl41” doesn’t really scream “professional” to me (or at least not the kind of professional we’re hiring). Maybe try something simple…like your first initial…last name…maybe a couple of numbers if you have to. Totally novel concept, I know.
  4. If you’re e-mailing me your resume, don’t call it “good resume” or “updated resume” or “resume number 1” or “document 1 “.  Give the document a reasonable name like “lastname_resume”. Again, a totally novel concept.
  5. Another issue with e-mail…don’t use an e-mail address registered in your husband or wife’s name. Whether you realize it or not, when you send a “thanks for the interview” e-mail from their account, it shows up as if it’s coming from them. Pretty confusing when I interviewed Sue Smith, and now I’m getting a thank you e-mail that looks like it’s from Peter Smith. E-mail is free. Set up your own account. Register it under your name.
  6. Unless your interviewing for a job as a stripper (and we’re not hiring any strippers), then I don’t need to see your belly button or excessive amounts of cleavage.
  7. If you’re going to an interview, wear a suit. It’s that simple. You don’t have to look like you’re going to a funeral – but at least wear some kind of suit-like well-put together, properly fitting, clean, ironed outfit.
  8. In a panel interview, don’t be a lemming. If the first person misunderstands the question and answers the question wrong, don’t follow in the same pattern of answering it wrong just avoid rocking the boat. If you think you heard the question differently, ask for clarification. I don’t like hearing the same wrong answer repeated five times.
  9. Smile. At least act excited to be in the interview, even if you’re not.

That’s it.

For now anyway.

Filed under: Observations from the Field | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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