What one CEO looks for in resumes

4 entrepreneur blog

Posted on January 15, 2009

“Life,” William James once said, “is in the transitions.” He wasn’t talking about weddings and graduations, but the lonely moments before, when a decision still hangs in the balance, and irrelevant details are so vivid that they’ll stick in your mind for years to come: the melted-plastic smell of a U-Haul cab; the iron sound of a public mailbox swinging shut; a paper hospital cup; a flight of stairs; a metal door-knob; a sealed envelope. ...

Resumes are horrible documents, premature and unsentimental obituaries: our lives are rarely reduced to such a small number of facts. And writing a resume is a balancing act between feeling outrageously boastful and unimpressive. Some, like Seth Godin, have questioned whether you should even have a resume. ...

... Having reviewed thousands of resumes, I now have a better idea of what the folks ... like to see:

Here’s What I Like:

1. A direct style: use blunt, short words. Most resumes are scanned, not read.
2. Looks: like a middle-aged man’s apartment. Nice and tidy.
3. Objective: be direct; your objective is the job you’re applying for.
4. Verbs ending in “d”: shipped, launched, built, sold.
5. Results: not responsibilities or experience — but what responsibilities and experience helped you accomplish.
6. Bullets: 3 – 4 results per job.
7. Numbers: ­ traffic from Google 230%, ¯ ad spending 40%.
8. Grades: your GPA, even if it was ten years ago, if it’s over 3.5.
9. Reviews: ratings from your last review, especially useful for Microsofties
10. Honors: we’ll interview an employee-of-the-quarter, every time.
11. Promotions: if your role changes, highlight that as two jobs.
12. LinkedIn endorsements: persuasive, even from your friends.
13. A Link to Your Blog: a blog gives you online street cred. For some, it is your resume.
14. Themes: whether you care about customer service or agile software, tell a consistent story from job to job.
15. Hobbies: I always want to meet people with fun hobbies. And that’s all a resume is: a request for a meeting. At Plumtree, we received a resume from a Playboy model. A colleague forwarded it to me with a note reading, “I’ve never asked you for anything before…” I feel the same way about cyclists.
16. Two page-max: if you’re under 30, one page.
17. Anything you did that showed initiative or passion. Eagle Scout. Math Olympics.
18. Email to the CEO: it takes chutzpah & resourcefulness to go straight to the top.
19. Customization: tailor your resume & especially the cover letter to the job.
20. Completed degrees: I’ve hired plenty of folks a few credits shy of a degree. Some were great; many couldn’t finish what they started. If you have time now, finish your degree.
21. Gmail address: or your own domain. Nothing says “totally out of it” like an AOL address.

Here’s What I Don’t Like:

1. Churn: stints at 2 or more employers of less than 2 years.
2. List of generic skills: just show what you actually accomplished at each job.
3. Typos or misspellings: About half the resumes I get are addressed to “RedFin.” For the other words, spell-check!
4. Photos: my favorite was of a candidate in tennis whites with a racket.
5. “Proven”: as in “proven leadership.” We all still have something to prove.
6. Printed resumes: email a Word document, web page or PDF.
7. Buzzwords: search bots love it, actual people don’t.

How to Restore Morale After Layoffs

BNET Blog

By CC Holland

January 27th, 2009 @ 9:11 am

I got a call last night from a dear friend of mine. He sounded down, and with good reason: His company had just laid off 75 percent of its workforce...

Which got me thinking. I’ve written recently about how to cut back without layoffs, and how to conduct layoffs gracefully … but how do you restore morale and productivity after layoffs occur?

The Hayes Group International suggests a five-pronged approach to keeping survivors afloat:

1. Plan: Figure out how the layoff will be communicated and how to assist survivors. Work out reassigned tasks and responsibilities ahead of time. Communicate why the changes were necessary and how roles will change.
2. Communicate: Explain how the organization plans to recover, what role the employees will play, and why the changes had to happen.
3. Listen empathetically: Most survivors will likely go through a period of grieving and guilt. A manager who’s able to console his team can help improve morale. When your employees air their feelings, listen more and talk less. Postpone responses and judgments until you’ve heard the person out. Use positive body language: make eye contact, nod as appropriate, and show you are listening and that you care.
4. Maintain trust: Many survivors will feel at least disappointed; some will feel betrayed. To try to maintain trust, observe three important elements — demonstrate concern, act with integrity, and achieve results.
5. Develop survivors’ skills: With reassigned responsibilities, some employees may need additional training. Anticipate this and have plans in place; talk with your team as time passes to see if they need more support.

John Shepler offers some additional tips for managers to cope with layoffs:

• Understand the need for a mourning period among remaining employees. Help provide time and, if necessary, counseling.
• Assess which employees are neither apathetic or hostile to the change. These positive employees will make the best leaders during the transition.
• Try to exude optimism; minimize criticism; acknowledge and celebrate successes.
• Build teamwork by creating a sense of “we’re all in this together and need each other to make it.”
• Foster camaraderie and encourage group discussions and input. Encourage humor, even if it’s gallows humor.
• Don’t overpromise; be honest. If you swear the layoffs are over and more occur, it’ll be almost impossible to regain trust.

Do you have any other suggestions for keeping your team’s morale up after layoffs? Share them with the Team Taskmaster community in the comments section.

CC Holland is an award-winning writer and editor whose work appears in several national publications and Web sites.

The Challenge In Forecasting - Looking at the Right Data

Open Forum Blog

...[In] the process of writing the article I had a “eureka moment” after I had watched a video (”A Matter of Choice“) and read an article (”The Power of Cause and Effect” PDF) by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt

.

According to Eliyahu Goldratt, it is time to really understand the law of cause and effect, and then use common sense on how to conduct your business. His point is that all too easily, people jump to conclusions and it becomes a self-fulfilling prediction on whether the economy is going to “hell” and the world is going “under” in the near future. ...

The example in the article describes a large Japanese electronic subsystems manufacturer which had a reduction of incoming orders by 50% in December 2008. The company’s management arrived quickly at certain conclusions ..., but they didn’t reflect further if the loss could be attributed to any other reasons.

As a result, they were looking at dismissing a lot of people. They extrapolated from these data from other industries and reached certain conclusions. ... They then got data from the Nikkei index (similar to Dow Jones index in America) and there they saw that one of the major retailers of electronic goods had increased its sales in December over 100% compared to last year!

The “problem” is that other parties of the supply chain are also following the same news media reports of dire warnings, and it became a snowball effect due the situation. The various parties involved in the chain cut back on their stock because others are doing it too, due to the fact that severe economic hardships were predicted. ... You could see examples of the panic syndrome in today’s auto industry in Sweden. ...

* * * * *

About the Author: Martin Lindeskog is a “trader in matter & spirit” and a small business entrepreneur in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is a board member of the Swedish National Association of Purchasing and Logistics (Silf, Western Region). Martin also writes a long-standing blog called Ego and will soon start a new series of interviews for his podcasting show on the Solid Vox network.

How Color Choices in Stores Can Influence Your Shopping Decisions

Shopping Journal Blog Posted using ShareThis One of the most powerful methods to appeal to a potential buyer is applying color theory to (e)commerce. Has it ever occurred to you why you feel safer in one store and more energetic in another one? Have you ever noticed that landing on some web page you feel like clicking some button/link and keep browsing the site? While other pages prompt you to stay and keep reading? To some extent, this might be the choice of colors for the page elements.

Why Doing Things Half Right Gives You the Best Results

HarvardBusiness.org blog

2:50 PM Monday February 2, 2009 by Peter Bregman

There are times in life when I expect something to be perfect. When I open the box of my new Macbook Air, for example. Or when I take money out of the ATM.

In most cases though, I expect imperfect. And in organizations, I think that's a good thing -- but not in the if-I-expect-imperfect-I-won't-be-disappointed sense.

I'm not suggesting you settle for imperfect. I'm telling you to shoot for it.

Several years ago, a large financial services company asked me to help them roll out a new performance management process for 2,000 people. ...

"Give me six months," I said.

When I reviewed the materials I was impressed, even intimidated. ...

They followed all the rules of traditional change management. ...

Still, only half the managers were doing reviews.

... I redesigned the materials, the training, the messages. ...

It was a complete and utter failure. People resisted. They complained. My own team dissented.

So I pushed harder. After all, I'd designed this myself. It was perfect.

And that's when it hit me. ... I would be more than happy to use it. But I wasn't the person who needed to use it. Here's what I realized:

1. My perfect is not their perfect.
2. They don't have a perfect. In fact, there is no they. There are 2000 individuals, each of whom wants something a little different.
3. The more perfect I think it is, the less willing I'll be to let anyone change it.
4. The only way to make it useful to everyone is to allow each person to change it to suit him or herself.
5. The only way people will use it is if they do change it in some way.
6. The only way I will encourage them to change it and make it their own is if I make it imperfect.

So I stopped the roll-out immediately. And I changed everything to make it half right, half finished. It wasn't pretty, but it was usable.

Even the trainings were half-designed. Halfway through each training, after describing the process, I always asked the same question:

Why won't this work for you?

... I responded to every answer with the same response:

That's a good point. So how can you change it to make it work?

<<reply>>. Great. ...

One by one we dealt with all the issues people saw as obstacles. One by one they made their own changes. One by one they took ownership for the system and became accountable for using it.

Is this only a large-scale change effort idea? Not at all. It's useful whenever you need someone else to take ownership for something. Just get it half right. ...

Here's the hard part: When someone changes your plan, ... Resist the temptation to explain why your way is better. Just smile and say Great. The drive, motivation, and accountability that person will gain from running with her own idea will be well worth it.

... It's also a great way to make a sale. Get the pitch half right and then say . . . Why won't this work for you? Then, go ahead and redesign the offer in collaboration with your potential client. You'll turn a potential client into a collaborative partner who ends up buying his own idea and then working with you to make it successful.

During economic downturns, when it is critical to get more done with fewer resources, getting things half right will take you half as long and give you better results.

How did this work in the performance review roll-out? One year later, the numbers came in. Ninety-five percent of managers had done their reviews.

Imperfectly, I expect.

Peter Bregman is CEO of Bregman Partners, Inc., a global leadership development and change management firm. He advises leaders in many of the world's premier organizations throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is the author of Point B: A Short Guide To Leading a Big Change.

Belt tightening

Downward business cycle may influence how employers invest in wellness

Employee Benefit News

By Lydell C. Bridgeford

October 1, 2008

The down economy is affecting employers' bottom lines across all aspects of business, which means expenses are getting squeezed. ...

Still, experts seem to agree that, despite tough economic times, employers remain committed to their wellness and health management programs, even though some are holding off on adding higher-cost elements. ...

Considering new ideas

A slowdown means employers have to be more creative and think outside of the box, says Brian Passon, wellness consultant and director at Corporate Fitness and Health, a company that focuses on wellness in the workplace. ...

A tight economy also means that an employer's health-related vendors, individuals involved in worker's compensation, occupational health, wellness and the health plan, must be on the same page. That requires "getting everybody together once or twice a year to examine how are we improving the health of our employees, and making sure we are not duplicating services. In tight times, you want to ensure that you are only paying for the services that you need," Passon says.

Taking the long view

Of course, employers want to lower health care costs, but they also see engaged, healthy and productive employees as being a positive offset to the economy, which many organizations are concerned about, says Chris Boyce, CEO of Virgin HealthMiles, a Massachusetts-based wellness program provider.

"The conversations that we have had with employers is that wellness programs are not discretionary spending, because organizations realize that they are already spending a lot of money on health care, which keeps increasing," Boyce says.

In a slow economy, there's more of an imperative to try to figure out how to control health care costs and keep employee morale high. "They find investing in wellness during a tight business quarter is necessary because their health care costs have not changed that much and they are looking for ways to reduce that costs," he adds. ...

"Over the years, we have done all we know how to do on the medical side to control costs and still offer quality care. You can only do so much in that arena before you start cutting benefits, which we did not want to do," says Bill Reynolds, corporate director of benefits and compensation at Interface Inc., a Georgia-based carpet manufacturing company. ...

Most employers do realize that wellness and health management are not short-term strategies, says Carol Tavella, a senior manager at Chicago-based consultancy SMART.

Yet in light of the economy, some employers are beefing up their programs

"The reason for that is a good health management program is going to focus on the big health influencers, such as tobacco use, nutrition, weight management, physical activity and stress reduction," she says. "Those are the things you start to think about in terms of behavioral interventions."

Interventions, such a walking program, bringing in Weight Watchers, brown bag lunches about nutrition and having experts speak about stress reduction, are low-cost items. ...

The other interesting thing about the current economic climate is that it can be leveraged to increase the perceived value of wellness incentives, which are a key driver to get people to participate in wellness programs.

Tavella notes: "All of sudden, when that $25 gift certificate, which in the past might not have had much value to a worker, becomes a $25 gas card, then that is something that everyone covets."

Is the Job Loss Among Entrepreneurs Reversing Itself?

Smallbiztrends Blog Posted using ShareThis The Seasonally Adjusted Non-agricultural Self-Employment Rate by month from June 2008 through January 2009. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics web site

Make a Referral - jump start the economy

I'm pledging to make a referral to a business I want to help as part of a national campaign to make 1000 referrals March 9-13. What a great small business stimulus plan.

View >>

Risk of Inflation is VERY Real

Growthink Blog

Written by Jay Turo on Tuesday, January 27, 2009

...The M0 money supply (currency in circulation) from September to December of 2008, expanded from $905 billion to $1.65 trillion, or a WHOPPING increase of 82%.

Now the argument has been made that the main reason for this is not solely due to the printing of more money by the Fed, but because of the fact that banks, as opposed to actually lending out all of the bailout money poured into them by the Treasury, have simply turned around and bought treasury securities with it. While this is certainly part of what has happened in the last few months, it by no mean explains away the whole 82% increase.

Rather, with the federal budget deficit predicted to swell to a record $1.2 trillion for fiscal 2009 (ends September 30, 2009), combined with ongoing and systemic ...[events and issues], there is only one way that the Fed can keep its book in balance.

By printing more money. And a lot of it. As in over 20% on an annualized basis. ...

How to hedge against inflation risk?

Three ideas: 1. Let go of the false belief that cash is a safe investment. Just a few years of double-digit inflation can reduce the purchasing power of your savings by half. 2. Move cash assets to inflation-hedged vehicles. Equities, both public and private, have historically grown in value at at least the rate of inflation. 3. Be wary of bonds. Both because of the fundamental dysfunction of the debt markets caused by the huge governmental intervention in these last few months, and because a high inflation environment is always a high nominal interest rate environment (driving down bond prices), don't be overly seduced by the very high-paying yields on a lot of corporate debt. It is a LOT riskier than advertised.

... Greatly avoid the temptation to just "wait out" the storm and take action now with New Year's business and investment moves.

Social Networking or Social Notworking?

OPEN Forum by American Express OPEN

Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends February 9th, 2009 - 03:53 PM

“How do you make sure you’re networking, instead of notworking?” ...

I think it’s getting harder to know where that line is. With today’s social media — especially sites with lots of interactivity and immediate feedback such as Twitter — you can easily get caught up in chatting and surfing. It’s a constant mental interruption. Before you know it, you’ve squandered a couple of perfectly good hours of prime workday.

For small business owners, entrepreneurs, managers and professionals, it’s become an especially sticky problem. We convince ourselves that online networking is important for marketing. ... However, in the terrestrial world, no business owner does marketing all day long to the exclusion of other activities. ...

My stock answer to the social notworking phenomenon is: “have discipline, set a certain time limit, and know that it’s time to stop.” Some people have no problem setting time limits and sticking to them.

But today’s social sites are so interactive — sites like Twitter and FriendFeed — that the attention and instant response can be addicting. ...

So the question becomes, how do you force yourself to limit your social networking activities?

...I find that it is important to put social networking in the context of business goals. If I set goals, and determine how / what I want social networking and online social activity to achieve, it becomes easier to know when to stop before I waste time — and to actually stop.

Setting goals gives you a clearer sense of purpose to your daily activities, as this quote at the Mindful Source points out:

While listening to a Brian Tracy audio program recently, I was struck by the following words - “You can’t hit a target you cannot see.” ... If you don’t know where you’re headed, how will you ever get there? ...

So start here. Figure out what it is you want and start moving towards it. Spend time today writing about your goals to clarify your thinking. You may be surprised. * * *

... As you begin to crystallize your goals in writing, you will create that “target” for your daily living. Your life will take on far more purpose than before ….”

... Your goals and sense of purpose will guide you in determining what to spend time on each day. But without goals, you’ll soon be adrift, like a boat without a rudder or sails, enjoying the interaction on Twitter, but not getting much done for your business.

Concierge benefits give employers an edge in recruitment and retention

Employee Benefit Adviser

By McLean Robbins

January 1, 2009

... Katherine Giovanni, president of the International Concierge and Errand Association, says that concierge benefits are an effective and still largely overlooked work-life benefits offering.

"It's going to give you an edge up on your competition because not everyone is offering this benefit," according to Giovanni. ...

Doug Cook, owner and founder of Birmingham, Ala.-based Concierge Worldwide, advocates for concierge benefits because they have a direct and lasting impact. He puts the rationale in terms employers understand.

"If you add in 1% [to the match] on the 401(k), people think, 'Wow, that's good,'" Cook says. "Two days later, they've forgotten about it."

... Dalbey Education Institute, a 275-employee Denver-based company, ... [brought] a full-time concierge into their office. Within seven weeks of implementing the program, Dalbey says 70% of employees were onboard, more than twice the one-year national average.

Dalbey's HR Director Nancy Bodnar ... and her three-member team had been brainstorming for some time about how to increase employee satisfaction and improve retention, especially among the "what can you do for me now" Gen X and Gen Y set.

"Our culture is first and foremost. If our employees aren't successful, our clients aren't happy," says Bodnar. ...

... Concierge benefits, she says, can actually affect cultural change - the way employees view a workplace, and the way they perform day-to-day activities at the job without personal distractions. ...

Show me the $$$

When marketing his services to potential clients, [Todd Wheeler, owner of Concierge Resources] ... says that he focuses on finding companies that understand that people are their most important product. ...

["We do what you don't want to do, what you don't know how to do, and what you don't have time to do," Wheeler says.] ...

"It was about helping employees focus on work and not having to worry about all the little things that can bog down their time," [Bodnar]says. She wanted to increase retention and make the organization a true "best place to work."

Bodnar's data suggested that employees can lose as many as one to two hours each day with non-work related activities while in the office. Thus, she said, even if productivity loss was cut to a mere 30 minutes daily, when averaging the monetary loss of each employee, the net loss for the company was more than a million dollars annually - several times the price tag for an effective concierge program.

Depending on the size of the office, Wheeler estimates that full-time, in-house concierge benefits cost between $20 and $40 per employee, per month. Given the economy and the ever-shrinking pile of employee benefit dollars that sounds high, but Bodnar disagrees. "It's a modest financial impact; really ... we're talking a couple of people's annual salaries." She says that if you lose several employees each year and consider the cost of finding, training, and re-hiring new personnel, the costs even out, particularly when factoring return on investment.

Hiring a concierge is indeed less expensive than many cash-strapped businesses fear, according to Giovanni. Older workers looking to retire and work part time, or younger employees looking for a foot in the door can make great concierge workers, she says.

There are green benefits to having a concierge program as well. Wheeler says that in a single year, one business's concierge program eliminated 130,000 vehicle miles from the roads.

Effectively-developed concierge programs should create a positive feedback loop and numerous referrals when implemented correctly.

"Our executives have commented that this has been the best benefit we've ever offered," Bodnar says.

When baby boomers in the organization begin to retire, many spots will open up for Gen X and Gen Y employees who will "shop around" for the best positions. Since work-life balance plays a decisive role in their decision making, a concierge program could become more valuable over time.

Small-Business Owners Await New Tax Breaks

NYTimes.com

By CONRAD DE AENLLE

Published: February 7, 2009

...A provision would allow businesses that had a loss last year to offset it against profits earned as far back as five years. Businesses could immediately recoup tax paid on the profits that the 2008 loss wiped away.

“Ordinarily when a business suffers a net operating loss, it can carry back the loss two years,” Barbara Weltman, a lawyer and author of “J. K. Lasser’s Small Business Taxes," explained. Lawmakers “want to extend that to five years, so if you have a very big loss, you’re going to be able to get a refund now. They’re trying to let businesses get some money back so they can use it to survive.”

The amount that can be carried back is limited to 90 percent of the loss; the rest is forfeited. This piece of the provision is known as “Rangel’s wrinkle,” she said, a reference to Representative Charles B. Rangel, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the panel that oversees budget matters.

Deductions and accounting devices won’t prevent some businesses from being unable to pay their full tax bill. As with individual taxpayers, the Internal Revenue Service is willing to show businesses some leeway, a spokeswoman for the agency said. Debt collections may be postponed if matters have gone that far, and leniency may be granted when payments are missed under installment agreements. ...

IT is not as though business owners have nothing else to occupy their thoughts. The complexities of taxation and a concentration on other aspects of running a business may mean that new tax breaks are not as beneficial as these owners hope. ...

The Jevons paradox and why more efficient cars won’t solve our emissions problems

Switchboard, from NRDC :: Kaid Benfield's Blog

Kaid Benfield

Director, Smart Growth Program, Washington, DC

By and large, the environmental community - including my own organization - has put far more resources into making our vehicle fleet more efficient than into reducing our dependence on driving through better land use. ...[The] relative lack of commitment to land use strategies is a mistake.

In part, this is because land use strategies pay off with multiple benefits - not only reducing greenhouse gases and other tailpipe emissions, but also conserving land, promoting fitness through physical activity, reducing stormwater runoff, rejuvenating disinvested neighborhoods, and saving money on infrastructure, among other rewards. ...

But there may be another reason: in a provocative new article in The Progressive ("The Myth of the Efficient Car"), Alec Dubro argues that making cars more efficient will actually encourage their use, wiping out some or all of the benefits of efficiency:

"In 1865, English economist William Stanley Jevons discovered an efficiency paradox: the more efficient you make machines, the more energy they use. Why? Because the more efficient they are, the better they are, the cheaper they are and more people buy them, and the more they'll use them. Now, that's good for manufacturers and maybe good for consumers, but if the problem is energy consumption or pollution, it's not good.

"The so-called Jevons Paradox ... is occasionally referred to as the Khazoom-Brookes postulate or the more explicative rebound effect. It's been neatly summarized as, 'those energy efficiency improvements that, on the broadest considerations, are economically justified at the microlevel lead to higher levels of energy consumption at the macro level.' Or, in short, you make money on each transaction and lose it in volume."

... I've wondered about this, especially when gasoline prices climbed so high for a while last year as, given global demand, they are bound to do again.

The market responded with more purchases of smaller cars and reduced driving, and we have stayed there since . ...

Dubro goes on to challenge the trendy premise that a 100-mpg "hypercar" is the key to a sustainable transportation future, and suggests that our continued love affair with driving needs to end, for a variety of reasons. He argues for more controls on sprawl and more compact, walkable neighborhoods ...

NRDC believes we need to do both, and I agree. But we and other environmental groups need to do more for land use. Dubro's article is well worth a read.

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.

Who Discloses What?

New regulations clarify the duties of qualified retirement plan fiduciaries and advisors. Posted using ShareThis Financial Advisor Magazine By Janet Aschkenasy Pending regulations from the Department of Labor require retirement plan vendors to disclose in writing just what services they provide to qualified retirement plan sponsors, and what sorts of compensation they’re receiving—including gifts, awards, trips, research, finder’s fees, soft-dollar payments, fees deducted from investment returns and other kinds of compensation. There are several steps advisors need to take immediately to prepare for the regulations, says attorney Reish. Not only does 408(b)(2) shift the burden to the service provider, he notes, but the information must be delivered sufficiently in advance of entering into the arrangement to give the responsible plan fiduciary time to review the information before entering into the transaction. It’s important to keep in mind that the reasonable-contract fee disclosure regulation appears as part of a multifaceted Labor Department effort. This includes the department’s so-called rule, “Fiduciary Requirements for Disclosure in Participant-Directed Individual Account Plans,” requiring plan fiduciaries to disclose the dollar amount that each participant pays for administrative services such as accounting and record keeping every quarter. The Labor Department estimates that those disclosures would save participants $6.1 billion over ten years, including $2.3 billion from lower fees as investment houses become more cost-aware and more competitive. Reish believes that those particular regulations won’t take hold until 2010. Members of the private sector have argued strongly that it will take another year at least to get up to speed with all the new rules, he says, and “people can only do so much.”