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The other night I had a great career experience. I got the chance to hear jazz singer and Toronto radio personality, Heather Bambrick, tell her story. It was at a meeting of the Oakville chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women and it was awesome!

Heather had decided that the theme for her talk should be “How to be an artist and still have a mortgage”. Although, if you were listening closely, the real theme was just say yes. 

Midway through her degree in Political Science, she decided she did not really want to be a lawyer but rather a jazz singer. She finished her degree anyway and then registered to study at the University of  Toronto Faculty of Jazz.

Nearing graduation, someone asked her if she would consider teaching. She said yes.

As a successful teacher, she was still doing singing gigs and through that, someone asked if she would consider doing voice work such as commercials. She said yes.

Then her agent asked how she felt about doing voices in animated shows. Guess what?  She said yes.

At that point, her recordings were getting airplay on jazzfm and she was invited to perform at a fundraiser. The folks at the station asked how she would feel about doing a radio show. That scared her a little but she still said yes, she was open to trying it out.

So here she is today doing a keynote address, with a permanent morning radio show and a broadway review about to start touring.

Can she get a mortgage?  Yes she can.

Not everyone can be a radio host or sing beebop, but everyone can keep their eyes up and open for new opportunities. So practice raising you hand and saying yes. I don’t where it might lead you, but call me when you get there.

What did you do in high school?  Were you the class prankster in college?  Is there evidence of your antics on social media?  Have you checked?

There have been a whole bunch of incidents recently that are going to follow people around for the rest of their careers.

Gautam Setia was asked to leave Appleby College when he was caught with a smoking bong in his room the night before his last exam.  He got a high school diploma but not an Appleby diploma.  He parents decided that he deserved an Appleby diploma and they are suing the school.  Whether you agree or disagree with the parents decision, whenever someone looks up his name, all they will see is a long trail of newspaper stories that mention “expel” and “bong”  Not good for employment prospects at all.

Last week, videos surfaced that showed university students on both coasts shouting inappropriate and offensive chants as part of frosh week. No matter how you feel about the chants, if the students are tagged, named or otherwise identified, it will follow them for years.  If any of these frosh were considering a career in the law or politics, this may leave a very long and ass biting trail.

So watch out and be careful.  And if you are looking for a career with a serious future, consider starting an “internet wiping” service.  It looks like lots of people are going to need it.

Today is Rosh Hashanah – Jewish New Year.  Today, aside from eating copious quantities of apples, honey and brisket, we focus on reviewing the year that has just passed.

We think about what we did and how we acted.  Did we do everything we could do make the world better?  What could we improve for this coming year?

So, no resume tips or job search strategies.  Nope.  Just reflection, family and food.

Take care and all the best for 5774.

Information interviews are pretty popular these days. They can be a great way to learn about different roles and different organizations.

These conversations, usually more casual than an actual interview, also provide a great platform for you to leave a lasting and positive impression.

But only if you are prepared.

So don’t blow it.

When someone grants you some of their valuable time, be respectful and use the time wisely.

Do some thinking and research before you go.

What specifically do you want to know?  What knowledge do you want to take away from the meeting?

• What was the most valuable part of their education?
• How do they deal with the challenges of their job?  You can show off your knowledge here by citing a particular challenge.
• Is this where they imagined they would be at this point in their career?
• What is the best piece of advice they ever got?

Notice that there are two questions that are not on the list. How do I get hired here and will you be my mentor are out of bounds for this type of conversation and should only come up if the person you are meeting initiates it.  The point of the meeting is to get information, not ask for a job. Respect that.

They are just some ideas to get you started. Powerful and interesting questions will allow you to make the most of your time together.

And if you are going to shower, shave and put on a suit, it better be a worthwhile investment.

Here’s a great way to freshen up your profile on LinkedIn. Get some recommendations. This is especially true of you are trying to do something a bit different or gain some traction in a new area. 

 When I say recommendations, I don’t mean endorsements. I think endorsements are really just clutter. I am talking about actually asking people you know for a recommendation.  

This is really valuable for students who are looking for their first job.  If you have a recommendation from a Prof or a manager from a part time job, it really adds to your profile.

I think they are equally valuable for new Canadians or new grads who have done an unpaid internship or coop.  A warm
recommendation from those managers gives you some real credibility.

It’s easy. You just go to your Profile page and click on the little arrow beside the Edit Profile button.  Select Ask to be recommended and the fill in the rest of the boxes.  Write a nice little note to your contact and then wait for the accolades to come back to you.

Here’s an even better way. Recommend someone else. Just pick a contact and go to their profile. Click the arrow beside Send a message and then add in your positive thoughts. They will feel so good that they will reciprocate in pretty short order.

So here’s your homework for today:  give one recommendation and ask for two.  It will be a worth while investment.

In most cases, your resume is the thing that provides the first impression of you to your future employer.  You have got to make sure it does everything you want it to do.

Choice of words is very important.  Strong, descriptive words are what make it compelling and interesting.

Think about different genres of novels.  We keep turning page after page of a spy novel because there are words like gut, assassin, skulk and stakeout. 

Romance novels entrance us with words like arch, gasp, rub, wet and moan.

You get the idea.

Your resume should be full of words that reflect your work and your successes.  You don’t want to get too carried away with acronyms but you certainly want to show that you know the business and your achievements reflect that.

It’s not enough to just use “action” words.  You need industry specific terms that will be appreciated by leaders in your space.  That’s what really catches people’s attention.

So ditch the generic terms and get explicit.

I was standing around eating popcorn with my colleagues this week and I started dreaming up with all kinds of new flavors. They were convinced that I was quite a genius and that perhaps I should explore this as a career opportunity.

I figured that it was worthy of some research. Could I really be a Flavour Designer?  It sounded pretty intriguing.

So I started on eluta.ca to see if I could find postings with this title. No go.  Then I went to simplyhired.com thinking it might more of an American thing.

Bingo!  There were some really interesting posting for Flavorists which turns out to be the same thing. Imagine developing new flavors for Pepsi or Frito Lay or even Kernels.

I was then able to go back to the Canadian sites with this title and find similar postings. Things were looking good.

The next step was to go to Linkedin.com to find people who are Flavorists now to see where they work and what they do every day. I was even able to piece together a pretty good looking career path.

This was pretty heady stuff. I was doodling all kinds of new flavors- caramel bacon popcorn, blueberry balsamic salad dressing, bourbon pistachio ice cream….. Then I found the first obstacle: a Bachelor science in Chemistry was listed in the education part of almost all of the profiles. I went back and checked the postings I liked. 

Yep.  It was there too.

Next stop:  Night school!

No one likes to talk about salary. It has this mystical kind of voodoo quality. No one wants to give the wrong answer. It seems to be steeped in mystery.

It is really not that complicated. Money is just one of the things that have to align for you to be considered a “fit”. If you are already making $100,000 more than the position pays, then the fit is not there. If you were way below the salary range in your last job, that does not fit either.

But this is not entirely about the money. It’s also about the risk and the culture.

Say you absolutely love a role so much that you would take a serious haircut to have it on your resume. This can work where you are taking a right hand turn on your career path. If you had been a corporate lawyer and you wanted to leave that world to do more meaningful work with a better work life balance then this would be credible and might be considered.

But here’s the risk: six months in, when the honeymoon is over and you have a bad day, you are really going to feel that haircut and suddenly, your job will not seem as great as it did before. You will ripe for the picking by people like me.

Here’s the other thing to consider: not all managers can handle it if one of their team members made more than they did in their last role. It can create all kinds of negative vibes and really mess up a team.

So when money is the topic be candid and clear about what you are used to and what you are looking for. Don’t try to get away with “Oh, it doesn’t matter” or “We can discuss it at an alternate time”. There is nothing worse than falling in love with an opportunity only to have the whole thing fall apart at the end because the salary is not appropriate for you.

So spill the beans. It’s the only way they can be counted.

I saw a cool thing on the news last night. Some guys were diving off the coast of California when suddenly a couple of humpback whales rose up out of the water together in a wash of water off the stern.

You can see the footage here (after the bit about the Pope).  It’s pretty awesome.

Apparently the whales were lunge feeding. This is when a group of whales work together to force the little fish they plan to eat up to the surface.  The whales then leap into the air scooping the fish their mouths as they go.

This is tremendously appealing on a lot of levels. Getting together for the gathering and preparation of food is a long standing tradition for our species too. And I don’t just mean a bunch of teenagers looking for change in a minivan at a late night drive though.

This is a pretty powerful way of managing your career too. Having a small group of people you get together with regularly to talk about jobs, work and life will have the same kind of beneficial effect. Call it lunge-style career management. Not only will good opportunities rise to the surface but there will be people with you to share the bounty and the joy.

So find some friends and get together. Start by talking about what you do and then move on to what you want to do differently. Listen carefully and all kinds of good stuff will rise to the surface.

I heard a fellow interviewed on CBC Radio the other day.  He had been unemployed for more than two years.  His last job had been in IT services.  When asked why it was taking so long to get a job, he said it was because employers were looking for people with specific certifications that he did not have.  He had done well in his previous company by learning on the job so he had never taken any courses.

This is tragic but predictable.

It’s all well and good when you are fully employed and everyone in the organization knows what you can do but what happens when that changes?  Perhaps a new manager comes into the organization or there is a downsizing.  Your reputation may not be enough to keep you in your spot.

Certifications and credentials act as risk reducers.  When a hiring manager sees that you have five years of experience in database administration but no courses relating to that field, do they automatically assume that you must be highly competent at learning on the fly?  No, they wonder why you never took the time to formalize your experience.

It’s the same with a professional engineering designation.  Who would spend four years slogging away in a very tough academic environment  and then not seal the deal by doing the courses and exams for their P. Eng?

Yes, its added effort when you are already busy in your job but these kinds of extracurriculars pay big dividends down the road.

They give instant validation of your skills and that might be just the thing to get your resume to the top of the pile.  That’s worth a couple of night courses, isn’t it?