The Importance of Routine

Our lives are built on routine and that is mostly because we like it that way. It gives us structure and creates some level of efficiency. Think how much work it would be to wake up everyday and figure out how to organize all the work you had to do that week / month / year into a block that you could accomplish that day. By having neat boxes in our day it provides some structure that relieves us of this chore. It also ensures that most of that work actually gets done.

Why Routine?

When we are unemployed a good chunk of that structured day is suddenly unstructured, We are free for more than 10 hours that used to be very regimented. Wake up, get ready, commute, get through the work day, commute and get home. Free time - sounds wonderful doesn't it? A lot of things are wonderful till you get it. The problem with freedom is most people do not have the discipline to handle it and over time this lack of discipline and a freedom that one is not used to can put you in a spiral down which can result in the loss of many other freedoms and privileges of civilized society. In other words if you do not spend this free time constructively you will not find another job or create a stream of income that will allow you to retain the things and lifestyle that you have grown accustomed to.

What to do do about this?

We need to replace the time we used to spend on getting to work and at work with time spent on finding a new job or income stream. This article will focus on finding a new job which is something I know vs how to start a business which I do not know a lot about. Your new job is to sell you to anyone that is willing to part with their resources for your skill and time. It really is that simple.

Structure is key

You have a few key things you need to accomplish everyday:

1. You need to connect with as many people as you can 
2. You need to identify as many job opportunities as you can 
3. Identify the best method to and apply for those jobs that you identify that day 
4. Follow up on the applications and meetings you had in the past

See this article and this one on how to find a job for more details on these items.

You can add the following items to your day - this is an opportunity to adopt good new habits into your day.

1. Exercise 
2. Meditation 
3. Preparing and eating healthy meals 
4. Spending more time with family and friends 
5. Developing a healthy hobby 
6. Learning a new skill
7. Living more - There is more to life than work. 

Everyone needs to develop their own routine, what is most important is that you have a routine that moves you towards your goal than what precisely makes up the routine. Key is it should move you towards your goal.

A sample routine might work as follows:

06:00 am wake up
06:30 am workout / meditation
08:00 am breakfast
09:00 am spend time applying to new opportunities on LinkedIn, Indeed and other sites
10:00 am connect with people coffee meetings, phone calls etc
noon try to grab lunch with someone
02:00 pm follow up on past contacts, applications
04:00 pm spend time applying to new opportunities on LinkedIn, Indeed and other sites
06:00 pm good time to connect with people over drinks
07:00 pm family time / learning
10:00 pm sleep

Please remember this is not a prescription it is a suggestion a guide to help you create your own routine.

Weekends

Sometimes the weekends are the worst. This is a time where it is harder to do things to help you find your new job. Fear not it is still a great time to connect with people at a more personal level. Get breakfast, lunch and drinks with people - remind them that you are still looking for your next opportunity.

The weekends are also a great time to recharge and get some happy into your life. Find those friends that make you happy that bring you joy. Spend time with them. If you need to have a good cry - whatever helps you recharge, focus and move forward.

This is not the time to spend time with family or friends that bring you down. You do not need that right now (you may not need that ever). You have a very clear primary goal - find a way to move forward, a new opportunity, what you do on your weekends matter towards this goal as all the work you do during the week.

What to watch out for

If you are waking up later and later everyday and letting more and more of your old routine go by the wayside this should alert you that you are getting used to doing little or nothing useful. If you watch day time TV or play Xbox for many hours during the day this should set of alarm bells. If you are not doing anything or spending time doing nothing useful then this is for sure a sign you are on a bad path.

Be kind to your self this is a hard time, it is possible that you are depressed. Talk to friends, family a therapist. Key thing is do not fall into a rut where you are not doing anything to help you move to the next step in your life. Adopt a a structure or routine as soon as possible even a simple one and make sure it includes activities that are healthy for you and will help move you towards your goals. Do something today!

Wrap up

Use this temporary period of your life to move your life forward. Think of this as an opportunity. It is a period of time that smart good people use to leap forward. Understand and believe that this is in fact a temporary situation, it is impermanent. Use the time to build a new life, a new way for your life, with new routines and new structure to help you be all that you want to be.

Confidence

Most people look for a job when they feel they must find a new job. Few people if any start the process and begin to interview until either something happens or they see that something is about to happen. These then are, generally, trying times – times when you are not necessarily feeling your most confident. Yet this is a time where you are marketing yourself and are expected to exude self-confidence. How then do you project this confidence? 

Past Achievements

One way to feel confident about your self and about the future is to look at the things that brought you to where you are. Your career accomplishments - these are things that would not have happened without you – you can argue that someone else may have executed those same things – but I say you need to believe that they would not have done so as well as you did. In the end you were the one that created these things they exist because of you and your hard work.

Look at the people you have touched and the impact you have had. Think about the people you have mentored, coached the people on whom you have made their lives better in some small way. If you have not done this up until now – start now – try hard to have some small positive impact on the people around you.

Focus on the things you have learned, your academics, your certifications, your on the job training, and the life experiences that make you who you are. You are unique in your life experience and the perspectives you bring to the table because of them.

Fake it till you make it

There are countless studies that detail the benefits of dressing well and paying attention to personal grooming. Fundamentally you absorb the image you are projecting. There is also studies that show how you hold yourself can instill a sense of confidence this TED Talk  is worth watching. If you smile a lot you will feel happy in that same way if you pretend to be confident you will feel confident.

Thoughts and actions

Focus on positive ideas and things that make you feel better about tomorrow and kill the negative self talk. This is not the time for introspection and learning from past mistakes. This is the time to leverage past victories and to build on them. To construct a reality in which you are super person. Then act like you are super person – do things that reflect this new you, be helpful to people, extend yourself, give of yourself. Shift the focus from you to outside you – a wider lens helps bring perspective.

Slow down – speak slowly and move a bit slower. This gives you more time to think and it reduces the ahhs and umms and that alone creates the impression that you know what you are talking about and have your act together. Confident people know that what they have to say matters and that others are willing to wait to listen to what they have to say.

Situation

By the time you actually get to talk to someone or meet someone in an interview that company has already some confidence in your ability and in you. They are looking to confirm their bias – that you are the person they want to hire. It is up to you to help them confirm what they already believe. Knowing that they already think you as capable should make you feel confident. In the words of Stuart Smalley: You are good enough, You are smart enough and doggone it, people like you! Believe it.

Fear and Anxiety

Fear and anxiety are not things that one deals with only when unemployed or looking for a new job. These are things we all deal with to some degree or another on a regular basis. Granted some handle this better than others.

Some of us are planners and worriers and spend a great deal of time thinking about all the horrible things that could possibly happen and some of us even take steps to reduce some of these risks. Most of us just worry without taking any action.

Someone I worked for a long time ago once told me "Worry is just wasted emotion.". Easy to say.

Anxiety as Energy

Somewhere along the way I learned to treat anxiety as energy - nervous energy. I thought why not put this to use. Take this energy and convert it into action. Do things that will occupy your time and mind and help in someway to reduce the risk you are worried about. Take a class, learn some new thing, workout, learn yoga, martial arts. If you tire your self out at least you might sleep better.

Change the scope 

Then while reading some book I came across this quote from the Dalai Lama and it really resonated with me.

"If we think only of ourselves, forget about other people, then our minds occupy very small area. Inside that small area, even tiny problem appears very big. But the moment you develop a sense of concern for others, you realize that, just like ourselves, they also want happiness; they also want satisfaction. When you have this sense of concern, your mind automatically widens. At this point, your own problems, even big problems, will not be so significant. The result? Big increase in peace of mind. So, if you think only of yourself, only your own happiness, the result is actually less happiness. You get more anxiety, more fear."- Dalai Lama XIV

This change of focus is much harder than treating Anxiety as Energy. This requires mastery of ones ego - for many of us this is a life long endeavor. Having said that - knowing this, that your context drives your anxiety helps. Focusing on helping others helps you get out of your own mind and your own worries. As a bonus you get to have a positive impact on the world.

Gratitude

I feel the best way to deal with Fear, Stress and Anxiety is the method recommended by Tony Robbins. Tony says everyday when you wake up think of 3 things that you are grateful for. This is mostly easy, specially if you are one of the lucky people who have access to the internet. Think about what that means, it means you have some computing device, electricity and a wifi signal. This by extrapolation generally means you have access to running water a roof above your head and most likely food in your belly. Right there you are better of than millions of people around the world.

When you change your focus to what you are grateful for - it is hard to continue to be afraid or anxious. Think about all the good things that have happened in your life that make your life what it is right now in this moment.

Seek Help

A lot of companies provide counselling as one of the benefits as an employee or as a benefit of the outplacement services. Talking things over with a trained professional is helpful and can provide you more tools with which to handle, stress, anxiety and fear. Do not dismiss this option at the very least try it out.

Conclusion

In the final analysis, rationality does not help deal with all emotion. This is where you pull out the big guns - your friends! A cup of coffee, a drink, an evening just shooting the breeze - amazing how much of an impact time with friends have on you. If you don't have any friends - see my article here on how to network - same approach can be used to make friends. In fact if you think of networking as making friends you will enjoy it more! 

Amazon and NYC

Let's be clear about something - this is very much NYC's loss and not Amazon's. Amazon is a juggernaut of a company with strangleholds on multiple commercial arenas - retail and Amazon Web Services probably being the top two that pop into people's minds.

Amazon was not being offered $3 Billion by NYC. NYC did not have $3B in cash to give Amazon. NYC was going to let Amazon not pay NYC $3B in taxes over some period of time. Think about to pay $3B in taxes Amazon would have to generate a lot more in taxable income. This income would have gone to its employees, service providers and whatever is left over goes to its shareholders as an increase in equity or as dividends. Terrible right?

In exchange for the $3B in tax breaks - Amazon was going to build a massive campus in Queens and create 25,000 new jobs. Let that sink in. In Queens. When was the last time an investment like this happened in Queens?

I do not believe Amazon was building out a warehouse business in Queens - more likely they were building out Corporate Governance, Amazon Web Services (AWS) etc. mostly well paying white collar jobs. Someone with AWS skills makes on average $120k a year - this is a very conservative estimation. The average salary in NYC is $69k per www.payscale.com. Let's assume the average NYC wage for the 25,000 jobs that NYC just lost - that Queens lost. That's $1.7B a year in income. All of which is taxable. All told this would be approximately $690 Million every year in tax revenue assuming a 40% total tax rate. Lets say its 30% instead its still over half a Billion in tax revenue lost.



If you assume an average corporate tax rate of 12.6% and that was equal to the $3,000,000,000 in savings offered to Amazon. This is the amount of taxable income that Amazon would have to generate  to get $3B in tax saves $23,809,523,809.52. That's $23B.

The situation is actually worse for NY than the loss of $23B. Because $23B would be taxable income. Before income is taxable you get to deduct expenses - all the money Amazon would have paid to other service providers - UPS, Janitorial staff, Cafeteria services etc. Wages to employees all this would be on top of the $23B in income. Granted there is no indication or guarantee that any of the $23B would be plowed back into the local economy. Still there would be $23B after paying everyone. Eventually after the tax incentives wore out NY would have had a shot at all this money. Now NY gets nothing. No 25,000 jobs, no new campus, no $23B after expenses business to call its own.

It gets worse. This work that 25,000 people were going to do didn't disappear. This work needs to get done. These jobs will go somewhere else. Per www.Howmoneywalks.com, NY is already losing $99.49B a year in adjusted gross income to other states. That's about $25k per every 2 minutes.

Worse still - the workers who would have had a choice to work at Amazon or not. Will now have no choice - because that choice was made for them by Amazon based on the shenanigans of their elected political leaders.

By any estimation this is a miserable failure wrestled from the arms of success at the eleventh hour. Instead of 25,000 new employed people making money, paying bills and taking care of their families, NYC and Queens have gotten zero new jobs and zero investment.

Interviewing

How to interview like a Pro!  

You sent out resumes, and you networked like mad and someone finally called you up for an interview. Now what? You may have never interviewed, you may have not interviewed in a long time, you may be here to refine your interviewing skills - well good. A successful interview begins way in advance of the time where you are actually sitting in front of someone.

Research the company  

Know as much as you can about the company with you are going to interview. Start with the website of the company itself, read and understand the mission statement, memorize the names of the senior leadership if possible, check out the press kit, any Brochures and marketing materials. If there are words or acronyms used that you do not understand research and learn them online. If there are any recent announcements pay attention to them so you can bring them up in your interview. You should feel familiar and comfortable with the material on the website.

Once you have exhausted the companies website use freely available websites such as www.Google.com , www.thevault.com , www.hoovers.com. You want to look for information on company financials, recent announcements on strategy, management changes. See if there is information on recent acquisitions. Again you are trying to gather information so that the person or people who are interviewing you feels like you are part of the team already, they do not have to explain a lot of context to you and this will make them feel more relaxed and think of you in a more positive light.

Other sources of information include www.Morningstar.com , finance.google.com , if you have a brokerage account you would also have access to company information for publicly traded companies via the data they provide.

In the case of privately held companies the information available will be much more limited, but you can use your network of contacts, if you do not have a network of contacts please begin now to create such a network - read my article on the topic if you needs some help on how to do this. Use www.linkedin.com to see if someone you know or someone they know works at the company with which you will be interviewing. Reach out and try to speak with someone at the company get a feel for the culture, the mood, the things that they are proud of, the things that they are not so proud of. The things to talk about and the things not to talk about.

Research the person you will interview with. By this I mean read the things they wish you to read about them. Read their www.Linkedin.com profile, see if they have published anything in the trade rags, if they won any awards - read the positive stuff you feel they would be happy to hear about - do not look up their divorce papers or the fact that they got busted for drug possession in college. You want this person to like you.

Presentation 

I am not going to spend too much time on personal grooming - you are an adult and if you do not know how to look presentable you probably should not be working someplace anyways, who knows you might show up where I work. So if you are not clean and well groomed learn to do it and do not just do it for the interview.

Always dress a bit better than what is expected. If they wear jeans and t-shirts go business casual, if they are business casual, wear a suit, if they wear suits, make sure your suit is up to mark. You can always casual up when you are dressed up, for example you can remove a tie, unbutton a shirt, take off a jacket, it is very difficult if not impossible to dress-up in a pinch. However you do want to try and fit in - people like people who are like them, there is simply no way around this, so if you show up in a somber black suit to a startup where everyone else is in shorts, this is probably not going to be a fun interview.

Whatever you decide to wear, make sure that the clothes are clean, not torn and pressed where appropriate. You are trying to make a good impression here; you are trying to tell these people you made an effort to present yourself in a positive light for them.

Couple of things for men: If your suit does not fit you - spend the money and get a new one. . If your suit is old - looks old in style or wear - buy a new one! If you cannot afford a new suit - borrow one or rent one - but seriously you can get a decent suit on sale for $200 from many places. Do not wear a shirt that is too tight around the neck and for goodness sakes get someone with taste to pick out a decent tie for you and do not wear shinny $20 ties that you bought off a guy at the corner and NO clip-on ties - this is never a good idea. If you do not know how to tie a tie-knot look it up online.

The use of cosmetics and perfumes should be appropriate for the workplace - now there are many different work places and many different jobs one could be applying to - I will speak to what I know - in a corporate environment - less is more, you want to present yourself as a professional, not a "gigolo" or a "hoochie momma" - a conservative approach is probably best.

Prepare everything (at least) the night before - you do not want to be figuring out what you will be wearing on the morning of the day of.

What to take with you 

You want a folder of some sort to contain the different papers you will take with you. You want to take a couple of copies of your resume printed on good paper. At least a couple more than the number of people you are supposed to meet. If the resume is multiple pages make sure that the pages are neatly stapled or clipped. If you have a business card take some of these with you, take a note pad and pen to take notes during the interview, take an extra pen in case the other one fails.

Getting there 

Figure out how to get there and if you are unfamiliar with the area give yourself plenty of time. Even if you are familiar with the area plan on arriving at the very least 30 minutes before your appointment. There are so many things that can go wrong, traffic, a missed train or bus, an accident, you forget something, so many things - best plan to arrive an hour early, hang out at a Starbucks around the corner time for a quick bathroom/freshen up and enter the building 15mts before your interview time. You want to enter the building 15 minutes prior to your interview so that there is time to get a building pass or get through other security procedures that might be in place.

First Impressions 

Greet everyone with a smile and a firm handshake, if you suffer from clammy hands well try to wipe them just before you do the meet and greet. The handshake is an important component of the meet and greet - it should not be too tight but it should not be very loose - this applies to both men and women. Look into the persons eyes, smile a genuine smile and pay attention to their name and repeat the name in a sentence maybe a "pleased to meet you Ms XYZ". If they give you a business card accept it if possible with both hands and read it and if possible place it in front of you for the duration of the interview and then remember to take it with you when you leave.

During the interview 

Your primary goal is to get an offer. The way you are going to get to this is by convincing the people you are speaking with that you are the person that they are looking for and they have no idea how they managed all this time without you.

There is no reason for you to be stressed or nervous, the people who are interviewing you are people too, ie: they had childhoods they have families, brothers and sisters, they do a lot of the same things as you do. They are human - irrespective of what club they belong to or what title they have or what firm they work for - they are all human and fundamentally we are not that different from each other. So Relax.

You want to try and relate to these people, and more importantly you want them to relate to you - look around the office, see if you see something you have in common. Try to make this interview a conversation and not a question and answer session, do not just answer their questions, ask questions back. The more conversational the interview is the less confrontational it is and the easier and comfortable it will all feel and the smoother it will all flow.

What questions can you ask - well almost anything really, except how much will you pay me, how many vacation days will I get, how soon can I take a sick day? Compensation is a conversation for AFTER you have been offered a job - if someone asks you how much would you like to make you can give them the usual vague answer that you would like to make a competitive salary for the role. If they push you for an answer you can based on your circumstances provide an answer. Something in line with - I made X dollars at my previous position, I am an excellent worker and I expect to make in the range of Y - Z. This range depends on the job market, whether you want the job more than they want you etc. And X can be either within the range you provide or below or above the range you provide. This is about negotiation - a whole other article. So do not talk about compensation or benefits at this stage - wait for the we would like to hire you first.

Everyone likes to talk and few people really have anyone that is willing to listen to them, so if the interviewer talks about something that they seem to really want to talk about - ask them about it let them talk about it - as long as it is something positive and something that makes them happy - so talking about a recent death in the family is probably not a topic you wish. Remember the interviewer will associate you with how they felt.

What will they ask me? 

Remember the interviewer is trying to find someone that will fit in to the work place with them and will also get work done. I believe the fit in bit is as important if not more important - they are looking for someone they can work with, someone they would like to be around.

After the usual small talk the interviewer will begin to ask you questions, starting with something broad maybe like "tell me something about yourself" or "tell me more about your last job" this is the ease in phase. This phase will be followed up by more specific questions about your background, maybe questions like "why are you leaving (or why did you leave) your current job", the focus will be on your resume and what is on there. You want to try and move on past the resume you want the person across from you to speak to you and get to know you, not the resume.

Interviewers are also coached to give you a situation and ask you how you will handle such a situation, they are encouraged to keep you talking as much as possible - the idea is you might contradict yourself, reveal something about yourself that would in their mind disqualify you, then again you could reveal something that makes you a better fit - so be yourself. Typical situations involve, "tell me about a conflict situation and how you handled it", "tell me about a situation where you had to work in a group", "tell me about a situation where you had to lead". So run through some situations that you think might come up in the job you are interviewing for and have some stories ready to go. Practice telling the story to a friend. For example if you are interviewing for a customer service job then imagine how you might handle an irate customer - refine the story and practice saying it.

If you are going to write things down, state this at the beginning of the interview and ask the interviewer if this is ok with them. Make notes in a consistent manner do not wait for some particular trigger to start writing furiously.

All good things...  

As the interview wraps up the interviewer will probably ask you if you have any questions for them, if you have not been firing them questions all this time - this is an absolute must do - you should have a question to ask them that shows them that you know your stuff - so this is not necessarily a question to get you more informed it is to show you off. If you have a business card and you didn't get an opportunity to share it, then do so now. Then ask them by when you think you will hear back and from whom, and thank the person for their time and try not to trip and fall as you leave as the consummate professional that you are.

After the interview 

After you leave the office where you interview try to get to someplace and debrief your self, what did you do well, what questions did they ask that you did not feel you did your best on, what acronyms or topics were discussed that you were not as proficient as you could have been. What skills did you have that people were excited about, what skills did they ask about that you were not as conversant in?

After you get home remember to send either a thank you email or a thank you note via snail mail depending on the company you met with to the individual that you met with. If a recruiter was instrumental in helping you then remember to call and thank them.

Finally 

The more prepared you are the less nervous you will be the less nervous you are the smoother things will go and the better you will present. The job is yours! Go get it.

Networking

Networking is just a posh sounding name for making friends. Seriously very simply put the more friends you have the easier your life will be. In a professional context Networking is a key ingredient in being successful either in your own business or when working in corporate.

I understand that not everyone is outgoing in nature and some find networking to be a chore. Nothing that you consider a chore is ever going to be enjoyable so let's try to change your perspective on it. If you find it 'work' to get out there and meet people and to stay in touch and involved in peoples lives then make a game of it - see how many people you can connect with in a month, how many people you can reach out to in a week, come up with a method that will make this not a chore.

Ideally as you connect with more and more people you find that being connected and being genuinely interested and helpful to people is something that you enjoy. Whatever you do please do not even feign interest in people. Either be interested or not. If you are not genuine about your interest in people then they will see right through you.

Where are you going to network?

Everywhere. Really everywhere. Specially if you are the shy type - put a smile (no not a scary creepy fake grin) on your face and say hello to the next stranger you meet. If you meet this person a couple of times (say a fellow commuter, someone who takes the elevator at the same time you do, postman) and you say hello, strike up a conversation.

When should you network? 

The best time to build a network is when everything is going well. When you do not need anyone's help, this is the time to build a network. Another good time to build a network is - well pretty much ANYTIME! Yes if you are alive, and there is another person within communication range then yup guess what - network. To provide a little more structure than that - when you start a new job set yourself a goal I will get to know X people in X days - be it 100 people in 100 days or 100 people in the first year or whatever that goal is understand this is just a guideline to encourage you to reach out and connect to those who surround you. Knowing the guy in the mail room and the lady who cleans the office WILL come in handy one day. Trust me!

Tools 

There are many networking tools available. Starting with something as simple as a notebook where you can have a page per contact and write down name, phone, cell phone and other contact info as well as other information relevant to the person and the context that you know the person in. You can take a step up from a notebook into something like a spreadsheet, or even outlook but in the end you are still storing the same info but making it easier to sort and find the data. The data is still mostly static.

The next step up is a web based social networking tool such as www.LinkedIn.com or www.facebook.com . These tools allow you to link with folks and stay linked and have access to current and update information from these people as they progress in their careers and lives. There are many such tools on line, LinkedIn is the premier business networking tool and has a couple of very useful features. Primarily LinkedIn allows people that you have worked with to leave recommendations for you, it also allows a method for you to speak to a broad audience (not just to the people that you know) about you and your skill set. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional network and keep the content appropriate to that context. In other words talk about work and your professional life on LinkedIn.

Facebook is more of a friends and family networking tool, however you must be careful about the information you post here, because people you know from a professional context might see the content you publish. So subscribe to the advice that says if you do not wish for something to show up on the front page of your local Newspaper then do not publish it anywhere on the internet. Nothing is truly private on the internet. However, having said that Facebook allows you to provide some dimensionality to who you are, you are not just Joe from the 3 rd cube in from the water cooler who knows Excel real well, you could be funny Joe who likes to go wind surfing and has 2 lovely children.

Things Remembered 

The more you can remember about someone the better it is. But at the very least you have to remember a person's name. When people say I am not good with names - they are really saying - I am so lazy I cannot be bothered. I mean what are you going to say I am great at names but I cannot remember your face? Listen there are many articles on the internet on how to remember things including names - learn some of those methods and practice. But for me the simplest method for remembering someone is just to care enough about them. If you care, you will remember! Once you get the name thing down, expand, remember how many kids they have, married/looking? What are they really into? Photography? Knitting? Where did they last go on vacation? What did you last speak to them about. The more you remember about a person the better your connection to that person will be.

Conversation 

A successful conversation will allow you to introduce yourself to the person but more importantly to allow the other person to talk to you and tell you about them. Listening to someone is the ultimate courtesy and in today's rushed lives people are starved for someone to listen to them. So if you can just get them going you will learn a lot about them, what their passions are and how they can be helpful to you and more importantly how you can be helpful to them.

Being Helpful 

You have to be helpful to the people in your network. A strong network is built and maintained and nurtured by favors. The help you give to others. The more trouble you take to be useful to your friends/contacts the stronger your network gets.

Make it Easy 

It is easier to connect with people you have something in common with - but you have something in common with almost everyone you meet. You meet people that work in the same building, or have kids going to the same school or play the same sport, or walk the same street or take the same bus. The key is to find that thing that is common and then to strike up a conversation about that topic. Why do you think everyone talks about the weather? Because it is common AND because it can in no way offend anyone – except maybe winter.

It is also easier to connect with people who are interesting, next time you see someone you wish you knew, say hello! What is the worst that can happen? They ignore you? How terrible is that? Will that set you back financially; will the whole world laugh at you? Really?

It is also easier to connect with people IF you are interesting, attractive and useful. Yes we all knew it’s good to be beautiful but even if you are not Ms or Mr America you can make yourself someone people want to get to know by making yourself useful to the people that do know you.

Ways of keeping in touch 

Sending everyone you know a mass email every month is NOT a good way to stay in touch. It is important to keep these contacts fresh and personal. It is probably not convenient to try to meet everyone on a weekly basis or even monthly basis but you should attempt to touch each of your contacts on a fairly regular and at the very least a semi-annual basis.

A great way to do this is to know the birthdays for everyone and drop them a quick email on their birthday. Or another is to send a useful article you might have come across or a holiday greeting with a personal note. Try your best to keep track of what is going on in the lives of your contacts.

Try to have lunch or coffee with a couple of contacts every week. Connect with a handful of contacts every month. Do not make it a chore ry to develop a healthy interest in people. Even if you brown bag your lunch there is nothing to stop you from having lunch with a colleague or to stop you from getting a cup of coffee or if you smoke there's a great opportunity to get something positive done while you kill yourself slowly.

Become a Hub 

Play matchmaker try to introduce people in your network that might be able to help each other, someone looking for a job with someone looking to hire. Someone who needs advice on a topic with someone who is an expert on the topic. Become a hub. Understand that your network connects to other people’s networks and that we are all a part of one large network that connects the whole human race. However, in every network there are certain connection points that are busier than others that are more connected. These are hubs. These are the people that you feel, know everybody - the do not but it feels like this. The key to being a hub is to match the needs and resources of your network to help the folks in your network and to actively try to help the folks in your network. 

Wrap up 

In case you are still wondering who you should network with - the answer is simple - Everyone. Where should you network - Everywhere. When should you network - All the time.

Because you do not know who, when or where you will meet the person that will turn out to be your next best friend, your next boss and who knows your next spouse!

Be friendly!

Fundamentals of Writing a Resume

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to impart the fundamentals of writing a good resume. There are books written on the subject with millions of examples etc. we will not get into that level of detail. We will instead try to focus in on the key aspects of a resume that get it noticed and get it to stand out from a stack of resumes. I have been a hiring manager for over 10 years and I have also spent time looking for work and have read some of those books mentioned above - so what you read here is practical advice that will help you.

A resume has one and only one purpose - to get you an interview - a resume does not get you a job - it gets you an interview.

Rule number one 

Your resume should (almost) never be more than 2 pages long - irrespective of how colorful a career/life you have had - you need to pick and choose the most valid contributions you made and the most exciting bits about your career and only include those in your resume. Think of a resume as a movie trailer - a very short teaser that makes you want to cough up $20 for a movie ticket and pay exorbitant sums of money for popcorn. Fortunately for you (and the person reading it as the case maybe) a resume only has to have actions (and results) - no romance and drama required.

Distilling a life and a career down to two pages is a very difficult task - but a task that focuses us and allows us to realize the really important contributions we have made and the things that we are most proud of - it helps us as individuals to recognize that which is our core skill - this realization is way more important that the task of creating a resume.

The more enlightened you are about your core skill set and the more you have set yourself apart in this one thing that you do more excellently the shorter your resume can be. I have seen resumes of very senior people that have been barely one page long. Think about what a resume for someone like Madonna might look like - or Richard Branson.

The Top Left Corner 

The top left corner of any page is the first place we as readers in the western world are used to turning our eyes - this makes it the most valuable real-estate of your resume. The most important information on your resume needs to go in this location.

The most important information on your resume is your name and your phone number. One can argue that the email address or mailing address is the most important way to contact you etc - this can I guess change based on culture, type of job etc - but generally whatever the most direct method of contacting you should be left most followed by the other information.

Your name should be in larger print than the rest of the print on the page - now how much larger this is beyond the scope of this article - it should look good - it should emphasize your name but it should not be a statement about your inadequacies.

Look and Feel 

Remember the metaphor of the movie-trailer the resume is an advertisement that is intended to entice a person to learn more about you. To invite you for an interview. It has to have as wide an appeal as possible because you do not know who will make this decision on allowing you to the next stage in the employment process. You do not know if it's a man a woman or even someone still discovering their sexual identity, really it doesn't matter - because you are going to market this to every-person.

So no pink paper - no blue paper - just use white. Today a lot of resumes are transmitted electronically and are received and printed on the cheapest recycled garbage that passes for paper in offices - now more than ever the content of the resume is what is important. However if you are handing in a hard copy - and you should always carry hard copies to an interview - make sure it is printed on good paper - something with a little more weight to it than the run of the mill copy paper. Your corner office supply mega-mall has aisles of choices - keep it good quality and simple.

I am no graphic artist - so if you are looking for nuances on what psychological impact Helvetica has over Times Roman or Georgia you are reading the wrong author. However I can tell you that you should use a simple font that will easily print on any computer - ie: something that ships with Word - fonts like Times Roman and Georgia will do just fine. Use a minimum of 11 point anything smaller and the "every-person" who might be over 40 might not be able to read it.

Use bold to highlight industry terms, or key products, but use them sparingly. Remember the point of bolding something is to make it pop-out - if everything around it is pop-out as well - there is no point. The use of color - I am not sure about - most offices still use black and white laser printers so at the risk of being a conformist corporate drone my recommendation would be to use black letters on white paper.

If you are handing out your resume vie email send it out in PDF format as well as Word. The PDF file allows the reader to see the resume as you intended it - while the Word file allows the recipient to manipulate it - including cutting and pasting into an internal database etc. Also make sure you check all meta-data in these files - ie: info such as Author (remember you thought it was funny when you installed Word and it asked for your name to enter Mickey Mouse? - well now the author of your resume is Mickey Mouse!), number of edits all this and more is stored in your document as meta data - another advantage PDF has over Word or other such apps.

Margins - in my opinion it is risky to go with anything less than a half an inch border all around - this is for technical reasons more so than aesthetic. Most printers cannot print to the very edge of the page. Also on practical terms you do not want the person to have to touch the print on the page - with some inkjet printers this could smudge the print. Best to try and leave a 1 inch border around the document if at all possible and then go down to a half inch if you really have to.

Using standard sized pages are also important - unless you are interviewing for a very artistic creative type of job - let’s print the resume on regular letter or A4 or whatever the norm is in your geographic location. When sending a resume to another country do the person the courtesy of reformatting your resume to fit their stand size - else they will get printer out of paper errors etc.

Content 

Ok so far we have covered the easy bits - the things you can easily control and change at your whim. Now comes the past the things you have done - the things that are difficult to change - even with some poetic license.

The cardinal rule when talking about your achievements - Talk about your achievements. In other words - do not lie; do not speak about your team/group's or your neighbors achievements. Focus on you and your contribution. Even more importantly what did your contribution result in?

What did you make happen? What would not have happened if you were not there? What made you worth the space you took up? What impact did you have in the places that you have worked? Then write a little about how you did it - just enough to convince the reader that you are not just making all this up.

Did you produce reports on a daily basis for 20 years? Well that may have been fun (in some parallel universe) but why did you do this? What was the purpose? What would not have happened if you did not do this? Who would have been upset if they came in every morning and your report was not on their desk or in their in-box? What did these reports enable?

Did the CEO or some senior big shot find your reports the must read with his morning coffee? Were they used to make some marvelous strategic decision that netted your previous company and its rich overlords many millions? Well this is what we need to mention in your resume. How your effort/contribution/ingenuity/pure brilliance resulted in something - hopefully something that would never have happened without you.

As a side note if you find yourself looking back and not finding anything that you impacted - the most likely reason is what you consider impact-full is not congruent with what you were able to impact - ie: your are looking for waves where there are only ripples. Look closer. Also take a note to question what you really want to do in the future - do you want to be making ripples for the rest of your life? - would you make waves in a different pond? - ie: would a change of context help you be the you that you wish to be?

The Order of Things 

There are many ways to organize a resume but there are two main formats - linear (as in time) and functional. Primarily this refers to how we organize the information we want to lay out in front of a prospective hiring manager. Do we wish to organize it by where we worked and what we did when? Or do we wish to organize it based on our core skill sets. For example you may have worked in Company A, B and C and you may have done some project management, office management and reporting. In a linear arrangement you would organize the information by company with the latest company first with the things that you did for that company under each company. In a functional resume you would have a heading called Project Management and list under it all the project management experiences you had and you may or may not mention the company where you had this experience. You would include a section lower down in your resume with the list of companies you worked for to show employment history.

A functional resume is invaluable specially if you are looking to switch careers or switch from one industry to another or one type of work to another - it allows a hiring manager to look beyond a particular job title or function to your core skill sets.

I believe in today's market you need both of these resumes and probably many versions of each - customized to highlight some portion of your experience to target particular job's that you may be applying to.

Final Words 

A resume is not you - it is at best a faint reflection of you. There are many dimensions to a person and their contributions to the world. A resume is a slice in time of one dimension of who you have been. It allows someone else - a stranger to you to decide in a fraction of time to give you the opportunity to convince them to allow you to work with them. It is written with a singular purpose - to get you an interview.

"An unexamined life is not worth living." -- Socrates

However if in writing a resume you have the good fortune to realize some things about yourself that you wish to change - this is fine. Change is not something that needs to happen for you to finish your resume – it is not a reason to postpone the creation of your resume or delay your job hunt - change, self assessment and more change are just a part of an enlightened life.