Think Calls are Better than Emails Think Again

Think Calls are Better than Emails Think Again I recently read an article entitled, “Dont Send an Email if You Can Pick Up the Phone.” The article was written by a former member of the Washington, DC political workforce who recounted the advice given to him by a veteran lobbyist. The lesson he took from the conversation was simply not to put anything in writing that you don’t want published for all to see. I consider the article’s title to be a double-edged sword â€" good advice for social media, bad for office communication. The article only refers to social media etiquette, and it’s certainly not surprising why someone who works in politics would want to avoid a paper trail leading to incriminating evidence. The author cites a recent case involving three teachers at a Rhode Island prep school who were forced to resign after making insulting and derogatory comments about their students on the Slack app. The comments were subsequently shared with the school community by a hacker via a Google Doc, causing outrage among school officials and parents. As far as I’m concerned, the subject of what NOT to post on social media is so old and trite, it’s hardly worthy of mention. With social media well into its second decade of popularity, employers would do well to wash their hands of any employee who still can’t distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate content. The lesson to be learned is applicable for all professions â€" don’t put anything in writing that could damage your career, your reputation or that of your employer. Switching gears, when I first read the title of the article, I thought it referred to typical office communication as opposed to incriminating social media posts and texts. I’ve had jobs in the past where managers prioritized phone conversations over email communication, regardless of which yielded better results. While I’ve never been shy about picking up the phone when the situation requires, I’ve always gravitated toward email communication if given the choice. Here’s why. Point of Reference My organizational skills are significantly better than my short-term memory. On a regular basis, I refer back to emails that I archive in folders based on client name or content. When communicating with numerous people daily regarding multiple projects, recalling specific details of a particular conversation after several months becomes nearly impossible. Archiving emails allows me to recall essential information that would be long-forgotten had it only existed in a phone conversation. Proofread to Perfection There’s a reason my title in my signature block says “Writer” and not “Speaker.” Constructing a well-thought-out email to a client or coworker allows me the chance to write, rewrite, proofread and edit until the final result looks polished and professional. Even if you’re just sending an informal email to a coworker, the content is still a reflection of your detail-orientation and professionalism. Similarly, if you anticipate follow-up questions after conveying important information to a client or coworker, it’s always better to provide thoughtful, accurate responses by email than spontaneous, inaccurate responses by phone. Cover All Bases Most of us have experienced the occasional client or manager who requests something, then after a period of time and dealing with numerous other people and projects, mysteriously changes the details of their request, only to insist that their request never changed at all. While sometimes you have no choice as to how you’re contacted with the initial request, if it’s in an email, it can mean the difference in an angry client or manager blaming you for not following directions, or them admitting fault and commending your attention to detail. In any job, both verbal and written communication skills are essential. Focusing only on one and not the other would be a mistake, and I certainly would not advise an employee to avoid taking or receiving phone calls. However, when both are weighted equally and given the choice, I find email communication advantageous. Regardless of what method of communication you prefer, when you decide to communicate in writing, remember…proofread, archive, and NEVER send or post anything you’ll regret.

Storytelling Tips For Personal Brand Building Success - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Storytelling Tips For Personal Brand Building Success - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Although there are a lot of books and blog posts describing the importance of storytelling as a personal brand building tool, there are a few that share a practical system for creating your own stories. The exception is Raf Stevens No Story, No Fans: Build Your Business Through Stories that Resonate. No Story, No Fans is the first book that not only tells why storytelling is an essential personal brand building tool, but provides a detailed description showing how to tell your own firms story in todays social marketing world. Setting the storytelling stage The introductory chapters provide example-filled descriptions of the importance of storytelling and its power. These chapters build a bridge between important earlier studies of storytelling, (i.e., Annette Simmons The Story Factor, Chip Heath Dan Heaths Made to Stick, etc.) and relates them to todays business environment. Highlights include numerous examples, accompanied by links and QR codes to help readers seemly access the examples, blog posts, and TED-videos demonstrating best storytelling practices at work. Part 1, by itself, is reason enough to read No Story, No Fans. Youll discover resources that will expand your understanding of the basics of storytelling and access examples of storytelling best practices at work. 3 steps to storytelling success Part 2, The Matryoshka Principle, based on the image of Russian nesting dollars, describes a simple 3-step process for creating your own stories. The steps include: Catch. Step l involves finding your story, learning to listen and engaging others in order to identify the key elements of your story, or your firms story. This fact-finding ensures that youre stories will be accurate and relevant. Create. Step 2, the production phase, involves designing your story and producing your story. Connect. Step 3 involves telling your story and selling your story, i.e., engaging others to pass your story along to others in todays connected world. Like the earlier chapters, the text contains links to relevant examples. Each chapter ends with a brief conclusion, In Sum: The Elevator Pitch, which summarizes the key ideas from each chapter. Raf has been blogging about storytelling for over three years now. Hes built an international audience at corporatestoryteller.be. Before writing No Story, No Fans, he has worked with numerous international companies, guiding them in using storytelling as a business tool, and given dozens of workshops and lectures about corporate storytelling to blue chip companies. Is   No Story, No Fans for you? If youre concerned that the information youre sharing online and in person may be missing the point because your messages are too detailed or too technical, youll gain a valuable new perspective from No Story, No Fans. Youll discover a practical process for aligning your message with your prospects hearts and dreams, multiplying the effectiveness of your personal brand building. Please share your comments about No Story, No Fans, or other storytelling books you may have read. Author: Roger C. Parker is an author, book coach, designer, consultant who works with authors, marketers, business professionals to achieve success with brand-building books practical marketing strategy. Visit Rogers blog to learn more about writing productivity tips or to ask a question.

Templates to Help You Avoid Writing Awkward Emails

Templates to Help You Avoid Writing Awkward Emails Let’s face it. Emailing people kinda sucks if you do not know the person. It’s worse when you are trying to network. So many blogs and advice articles state reasons why emails are a waste of time and explain how to manage them.Reaching out to complete strangers, or anyone you know, may feel awkward, but it does not have to be. Try using these templates to help you avoid writing awkward emails.1. Reaching out to a Complete StrangerMaybe you read something they wrote online or they work somewhere you find interesting. You know in your heart you are not spamming anyone, but it still feels awkward to reach to this person that you had never spoken to before.Try thisHello [Name],I hope you’re having a great week!My name is [Your name], and I work as [Position] at [Company]. I became familiar with your work when [how you discovered this person] and wanted to reach out to tell you how much I admire your [skill or specific experience].If you’re open to it, I’d love to [grab coffee/c onnect on LinkedIn/other opportunity to get to know each other] to [keep in touch/learn more about your experience].Really looking forward to keeping in touch, [Name]!Best,[Your name]2. Following up After a Brief EncounterYou went to a networking event or met someone on a trip and somehow ended up talking business or a hobby. You would like to catch up with the person and see how things have been going. You fear they will have a short attention span and they won’t remember you. That’s just awkward.Try thisHello [Name],I hope you’re having a great [day of the week].It was so nice to meet you at [place where you met] and chat about [topic you talked about]. After our conversation, I found this article about [relevant topic]. I thought you’d find it interesting and enlightening, so I figured I’d pass it along.Again, I really enjoyed meeting you and I’m looking forward to keeping in touch. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to get together and bounce around some more ideas about [topic]. I’d love that!Wishing you the best,[Your name]3. Requesting an InterviewOh boy. You know this can get awkward really fast. You want to connect with the person and you want to interview. You no longer want to be a stranger. Perhaps, you can work with this person. This type of email takes some thought because you asking for something from someone. And you cannot be rude about it. Try thisHello [Name],I hope you’re doing well!My name is [Your name], and I’m a [job title] with [Company]. I really admire your [work/experience] with [outlet]. I’m interested in finding out more about [area] myself and was hoping you’d be willing to provide some insights from your experience.If you’re open to it, I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee sometime soon so I can ask you some questions and learn more about you and your [journey/career path].I understand your schedule may be busy, so I’m also happy to pass along some questions via email if that’s easier for you. Looking forward to hearing from you, [Name]!Best wishes,[Your name]4. Introducing a Friend to a FriendYour friend said it was a good idea to reach out to one of his or her friends. Your friend says you have lots in common and should talk to each other. But this involves writing to an almost-complete stranger. You both do not know each other, but you have a mutual connection. You can avoid any awkwardness on your part.Try thisHello [Name],My name is [Your name], and I [how you know mutual contact] [mutual contact’s name], who passed along your contact information to me.[Mutual contact’s name] mentioned that we share a [passion for/interest in/experience with] [shared interest] and said you’d be a great person to get to know! So, I thought I’d reach out, introduce myself, and let you know that I’d love to find out more about you and your experience with [specific area].Looking forward to connecting, [Name]!All the best,[Your Name]ClosingThere is no getting around the percept ions and awkward nature of email. We all have reasons for deleting emails that appear awkward, sometimes even when we know the person. Next time around, try one of the templates above and see how it works out for you.Special thanks to The Muse for the templates!

Self-Discovery What It Means to Your Career Planning Efforts

Self-Discovery What It Means to Your Career Planning Efforts For women looking to develop their careers, here’s some advice to take to heart: Just because you’re good at dancing doesn’t mean you should become a professional dancer. You’re going to be spending a big chunk of your life at work â€" 35 percent of your total waking hours over a 50-year career, is what one estimate puts it at for the average person. That makes it all the more important to know who you are and what matters to you if you intend to spend those work hours at a career that becomes a natural extension of you. Undertaking a journey of self-discovery is what makes the difference â€" not just improving the career you’ve got, but also improving your insights into what you want. That’s where a successful career planning process begins. And your future life of happy, if not more satisfying and engaging work, takes off. Self-Assessment One place to start is with a self-assessment. Take a deep dive â€" and an honest one â€" into the individual traits that make you tick. You’ll develop a comprehensive self-portrait that will help you determine careers that fit. According to Nigerian author and career coach Segun Akiode, your self-assessment should cover the following ground: Values: What’s important to you? Achievement? Status? Autonomy? Interests: What do you enjoy doing? Golf? Movies with friends? Hiking? Personality: What makes you you? What motivates you? What are your needs? And what are your attitudes? Skills: What are you good at? Can you write and verbally communicate well? Are you a tech wiz? Are you a natural teacher? There are tools to assist you in the process, which you can find by Googling “career self-assessment.” Many are free. Higher Education Women should also consider the role higher education can play in self-development and career development. Many colleges and universities today are incorporating self-discovery into their MBA programs. After all, corporate talent recruiters look as much for soft skills and emotional intelligence in their top job candidates as they do for mastery of a particular aspect of business. Helping people reach the full potential of their personality has become an important part of many business schools’ overall programs. Access MBA, which matches qualified candidates for MBA programs with the world’s top business schools, points out that personal, leadership and career development coaching is becoming standard fare. At the IMD Business School in Switzerland, for example, students’ self discovery includes psychoanalytical coaching, peer reviews and individual reflection. It’s geared not just to impart the skills to navigate organizational contexts, but to help people understand how their own moral compasses impact decisions. In addition to formal schooling, also consider self-discovery programs like The Landmark Forum.     The Landmark Forum is all about helping people chart a clear path to self-discovery and self-awareness, whether that’s to benefit their careers or the quality of their relationships and personal lives. Who Are You? It can be difficult to go from determining who you are to actually figuring out what that means for the kind of work and work environment you’re best suited for. It’s especially challenging because self-discovery can take so many forms â€" from critical self-assessments to feedback from personality tests to coaching or training programs. However you go about it, you won’t necessarily get pointed to a specific career. You will, however, have gained the insights it takes to make more thoughtful career decisions.

5 Tips for Getting Recruiters to Notice You on LinkedIn - CareerMetis.com

5 Tips for Getting Recruiters to Notice You on LinkedIn Source â€" Flickr.comA few months ago, I came across this questionon Quora:“Does being on LinkedIn really help me get hired?”Hell yes, it does.evalOnly a year before I saw that question, a recruiter called me with an incredible position at Amazon.How’d she find me? You guessed it: LinkedIn.Having a LinkedIn profile literally changed my life. Instead of applying for jobs and praying, I flipped the traditional model on its head. I didn’t have to sell myself anymore.Now, recruiters reach out every week to try and sell meon coming to work for them. If that’s where you’d like to be, then here are 5 tips to help you get there:1. Complete Your ProfileAccording to LinkedIn, completed profiles are 40 times more likely to get a response from employers, yetonly half of the platform’s 400 million profiles are 100% complete.LinkedIn is like Google for recruiters. If your profile isn’t packed with the right keywords, you’re just not going to show up in their searches.Even worse, LinkedIn is biased against rookie and incomplete profiles. If you want to show up in recruiter searches, you have to workto improve the strength of your profile.evalAll that starts with bringing your profile up to 100%.2. A Clear Headline is Better than a Clever OneI’ve seen a lot of imaginative headline work on LinkedIn. There are plenty of people who describe themselves as “Marketing Ninjas” or “Accounting Wizards.”I love the creativity, but the problem is they’re too clever for their own good.Remember, LinkedIn is like Google for recruiters, and no Fortune 500 is looking to hire a “Ninja,” a “Wizard,” or an “Alchemist.” They’re looking for an “Account Executive” or a “Product Development Manager.”evalYou can Some recruiters tell me they’re turned off by anything less than 500 connections. They’re usually pretty forgiving, however, when it comes to recent college grads.But if you’ve had at least a decade to get established in the industry, a nything less than 500 signals that either you don’t play well with others or you’re not valued in your field.The qualityof your connections is what matters most. A recruiter doesn’t care if you’ve connected with 1,000 random people. They care about whothose people are.It’s especially helpful to have connections in the company where you want to work. If a recruiter from Google wants to make a hire, they’re going to feel much more comfortable contacting the person who knows 50 Googlers rather than the person who has zero connections within the company.ConclusionCan LinkedIn really get you hired?evalHell yes, it can; I’m living proof. Just follow these five tips and you’ll be well on your way to attracting high-quality contacts from the companies where you want to work.In this video I’ll share 5 tips I’ve learned along my journey to get found by recruiters.

Googles Crowded Interview Table

Googles Crowded Interview Table According to  HR Magazines SHRM 2009 HR Trend Book,  Google, known for its innovative culture, is putting a new twist on the interview process. They are using a technique known as  crowd sourcing,  which is based on  James Surowieckis work  and his belief that any given group of people is always smarter than any given expert. Heres what happens to a job applicants resume behind the scenes.  Google  uses its applicant tracking system (ATS) to ask employees to review information on applicants who have submitted their resumes online. Information about where they worked or went to school is parsed and stored in the ATS and the system matches that information to data about existing Google employees. Following a match, an email automatically asks employees for internal references. This system enables recruiters to leverage the knowledge of employees who best understand the demands of the jobs and the nature of the culture in assessing the fit of potential hires. It also allows employees to build the community, even if they are not part of the formal interview process. So if you are planning on applying to Google, you can expect a very thorough and democratic process, but also a more time consuming one.

Are You Using Quizlet When Writing Your Resume?

Are You Using Quizlet When Writing Your Resume?Quizzlet is a popular type of resume writing software that many people use to help them craft their own resumes. It is available online, but you can also purchase the software and then use it offline at your local bookstore or library. Because it is so easy to use, many people are opting to use it as the main resume writer on their computer instead of going through the extra steps needed to get one of the many other types of resume writing software that are available. But while it can be an efficient way to create a great resume, it is important to quiet before making any final decisions.Quizlet does not start off by asking a series of questions on a resume. Instead, it is used to quickly test different versions of a resume and decide which one will produce the best results. Instead of taking hours in order to get an accurate copy of your resume, quizlet can produce a good-looking, readable document in a matter of minutes. This makes it an excellent tool for those who want to look their best and are not worried about wasting time in order to achieve this goal.However, while quizlet can produce a highly professional-looking resume in just a few minutes, it is still important to quizlet it in order to get the most out of it. There are two main ways that quizzes can be used in order to get the most out of its power. The first is by ensuring that all of the information is accurate.As long as the quilt is working correctly, the information should be correct. If something is missing or inaccurate, it can cause you to look worse than if you were to simply take out and correct the information in your resume. This is especially true if the incorrect information was the result of a mistake. A person with a bad education and who has yet to find a job can end up looking bad simply because they made a single error on their resume.The second way to ensure that quizlet is being used properly is by asking each person who will see your resume to fill out a form. By placing each name in a separate form on a separate sheet of paper, you will be able to put a stamp on each one of the forms, marking them all as being different. While this may sound like a very complicated process, it will make it much easier to check each form in order to make sure that the information is correct.Quizlet is used to help people decide whether or not their resume is correct. When it is properly quizleted, it can provide a fair opinion of the applicant and the skills that the person possesses. In order to ensure that this process is being handled correctly, make sure that you quizlet your resume right away.After completing your quizlet, there are several options that you have. In order to make sure that your resume is the best possible example of what you have to offer, you can print the results and use them as a backup for your resume in case it is ever needed for a job interview. You can also save your resume as a PDF file, which will allow you to edit the text to make it appear more professional and to change it in order to appear a little more fresh.To ensure that quizlet is being used properly, quiz it before using it to create your resume. There are several tips that can be found online, but remember that every situation is different. You may need to experiment with the software in order to find the best solution for your resume needs.