Conducting an e-job search.

Over half of all U.S. workers now say they’re either looking for a new job or intend to do so in the next year. Most will also undoubtedly make the Internet a central component of their search. Here are some suggestions to make the time spent online more effective.

• Get prepared.
Who are you and what do you want? It’s estimated that 95% of the world’s population goes through life without ever answering this question. If you don't set targets for yourself, you’re going to end up chasing someone else’s goals. Before searching job websites, consider what you’re looking for, where you’re likely to find it, and how you’re going to get it. When you start, have a clear goal in mind, have your resume ready, and be willing to tailor it and your cover letter for each prospective employer.

• Customize your resume.
Make sure you include key words and phrases mentioned in job postings in your resume as this will increase your chances of finding a match in the employer’s applicant database. Using industry-specific terminology and tweaking your skills to include those repeatedly mentioned in the job ad can potentially double your chances of success. Use all lower case letters because capitalization makes them case sensitive. If you capitalize a key word, the computer will identify only those jobs where that word is capitalized. If you use all lower case letters, the computer will identify every job that contains the word, whether it’s capitalized or not.

• Read the fine print.
When responding to an online job ad, be sure to include everything they’ve asked for in your application. Remember, an e-mail with a virus is usually quarantined and deleted. Plus, it leaves a very bad impression of the intelligence, computer-skills, and Internet-savvy of the sender. Buy and use anti-virus software, and keep it up to date!

• Get names of key people.
Many employers post job openings on their web sites, but emailed resumes are probably directed to the human resources department. This is usually the last place you want your resume to go unless you’re interested in a position in that department. By exploring a company’s web site, however, you can sometimes find a name and phone number or e-mail address for the executive who’ll ultimately make the hiring decision. That’s the person you want to contact. The web sites of national trade associations may also contain contact information for local executives. There’s often lots of information about company management and recent developments on personal blogs, so it's worth typing the company name into a niche search engine such as Google Blog Search to see what you’ll find.

• Keep it short and sweet.

Reading online is 25% slower than reading from paper, so make things easy for prospective employers by keeping it brief and to the point. Keep your cover letter to three short paragraphs, and provide key information only: an introduction, a summary of your relevant skills and background, and a closing statement.

• Protect your privacy.
Post your resume on job search websites so potential employers can find you. However, if you’re currently employed, protect your identity by limiting access to your contact information (name, address, and phone number). Consider setting up a free email address (like Yahoo or Hotmail) just for your online job search. Don’t use a cute, or weird e-mail address (I’mgreat@whatever.com). This will just be deleted or ignored by recruiters or employers.

• Focus your search.

Many niche job boards now cater to specific professions; in the healthcare field, for example, search on biospace.com and medzilla.com. Posting your resume on too many job sites or sending it to hundreds of recruiters and employers doesn’t work. Most recipients have a spam filter screening e-mails from people they don’t know. So, always follow-up your e-mail with a phone call to be sure it was actually received.

• Use social networks to get connected.
If you already have a Facebook account, tell your network of online friends that you’re looking for a job. Most of them won’t be able to hire you, but they may know of opportunities or spread the word to their contacts. Consider summarizing your career achievements on LinkedIn and Plaxo, and using these sites to build, expand and mine your network of business contacts. You can also broadcast your availability and search progress on Twitter. When a prospective employer types your name into a search engine like Google or Yahoo, having a positive online presence can be very helpful. Also, try and see how you're connected to an employer of interest - this is easy to do using the company search feature in LinkedIn. You might have a friend who knows the hiring manager or can get first-hand information about the company.

• Be organized.
Don't submit your online job applications and then forget about them - print them out and save them for reference later. Print details of the jobs you apply for too. That way, if you ever need to review selection criteria before an interview, you can look it up. Passive job seekers get left behind in the current economic climate.

What to look for when changing jobs.

I read recently that only about 6% of employees truly love the work they do! If that’s true, then 94% are in various stages of disinterest, disillusion or despair during most of their waking hours. If you’re changing jobs, why not try to join the 6%.

Look for a company that matches your interests and utilizes the best aspects of your personality and skill set. Put yourself in an environment where you’ll be happy and engaged. Don’t apply to an employer whose integrity, character and culture are very different from your own or you’ll likely be unhappy there.

A successful job search starts with a candid self-assessment. Start by answering the following questions:

* What are your personal goals and how do they relate to the position you’re seeking?

* What work-related skills does the position require? How can you demonstrate these skills to a potential employer? What kind of previous job-related experience do you have?

* Does the position require leadership skills? How can you demonstrate these skills to an interviewer?

* Does the position require team-based collaboration, individual initiative, or a combination of these skills? Will this be a good fit for you?

* Is the business in a location where you’d like to work? How expensive and how long will your commute be? Does the company have a carpool serving your area?

* Can you work some of the time from home? Do employees work flexible schedules? (When a company tells you they offer flexible schedules, ask to talk to people who’ve taken advantage of them to be sure that it's not just a marketing ploy).

* How relaxed or formal is the culture? Is there a dress code? Can you bring your pets to work?

* Will you be required to travel for your work? If so, how far, how often and for how long? Is this something you want to do?

* Pay and a good benefits package are important, but they’re not everything. The best employers offer opportunities for career advancement as well. So, find out what kinds of training and professional development programs the company offers. Ask about the performance review process. How often are you reviewed and by whom? Always ask, “What happened to the person who had this job before me?”

* You don’t want to hitch your wagon to a falling star so evaluate the financial health of any company you’re considering joining. Look for an employer that’s likely to keep growing in the future, especially in the near future. Economic projections for the next few years suggest the present economic downturn is likely to continue through 2010. Therefore ask about the company’s track record of stability and growth during previous downturns.

How to quit your job.

When the time comes to leave your job, start by reviewing a copy of your company’s policy regarding giving notice. Then think about what you can do to minimize the dislocation for your employer and for your own career.

• Just walking away can be a big mistake.
In case you’ll need a reference later, it’s best to part on good terms. What people don’t say about you in a reference can be as telling as what they do say. People are always moving around within their industries so you never know when you’re likely to have to deal with them again. Make sure to keep your good relationships intact and don’t give previous employers any reason to badmouth you.

• Give notice first.
Most employers require you to give a certain amount of notice before you leave. They may not want you to stay once you make your intentions clear, but you’ve done the right thing and given them the choice. Stay or not, you should be paid for the contractual period of your notice.

• What does your new employer want?
Your new employer may want you to start right away but you may not be able to leave that soon. Most employers should be willing to accommodate your desire to give an appropriate amount of notice. Two weeks is usually the minimum, but four weeks or more may be more realistic in some professional situations. If you’re leaving to join a competitor, your employer may decide to end your employment effective immediately. Make sure you’re financially prepared for this.

• Write a formal resignation letter.
Your letter should be in a business format, and should include the following items:
- your intent to leave.
- the date you intend to leave.
- the date you’re submitting the letter.
- your signature.
That’s it. You don’t need to explain why you’re leaving. All that needs to go in your personnel file are the bare facts. Give your resignation letter to your direct supervisor. Keep it positive and remember that the intent is to maintain a positive relationship with the employer.

• Tell your boss.
This is always an uncomfortable situation. You may want to write down what you want to say to your boss and bring these notes to the meeting. Lay out your reasons for leaving. Don’t lie, but be sparing with the details - don’t let emotion lead you into revealing too much. Resigning should never be a negotiating tactic to get a pay raise. If you have to resort to this to get what you deserve, your current employer probably isn’t a good long-term fit for you anyway.

• Don’t be a pain before you leave.
Badmouthing the company and constantly reminding others how lucky you are to be leaving gets old real quick for those who have no plans to leave. When coworkers ask why you’re leaving, focus on the attraction of new opportunities.

• Try to finish up any outstanding work.
If others are depending on you to complete your work so they can meet a deadline, let them know what you’re planning to do before you go. Make a list of incomplete tasks so it’s easier for someone else to take over your role. Don't take anything with you, especially customer lists or product drawings. If you do, you’re likely to be sued for stealing "trade secrets."

• Exit interview.
If you agree to do an exit interview, avoid criticizing your employer or repeating suggestions you’ve offered in the past. You’re no longer responsible for anything other than wrapping up your current work. Criticisms may be misinterpreted after you leave, and you may end up accidentally burning bridges after all.

• Work hard until the very end.
It’s tempting to mentally check out of your job before you actually physically leave. Resist that urge and understand that your last impression is how you’ll be remembered. That way, you’ll end up leaving a job but you won’t end up stepping on toes, offending people, or cutting off past relationships.

Hiring resources.

Books I'd suggest that provide more helpful detail on the recruiting and hiring process include:

You're Not The Person I Hired!: A CEO's Survival Guide To Hiring Top Talent
by Janet Boydell, Barry Deutsch, and Brad Remillard

Hire With Your Head : Using POWER Hiring to build great companies
by Lou Adler, Published by John Wiley & Sons

Hiring and Keeping the Best People
by Harvard Business School Press

High-Impact Interview Questions: 701 Behavior-Based Questions to Find the Right Person for Every Job
by Victoria A. Hoevemeyer, published by AMACOM

All of these are available on Amazon.

You can also follow Barry Deutsch on Twitter where he posts many useful references.
(Barry_at_IMPACT)

You can follow me on Twitter too - however, I'm not as focused as Barry :-)
(cotterassoc)

Finally, in Professor Nitin Nohria’s book, What Really Works, published in 2003, his team found over 200 characteristics in their research and boiled them down to twenty. He reported that there were six to eight characteristics that really mattered in distinguishing winners from losers.

His team's research indicated that there are four critical elements that winners must have:
* Having a well-defined, clearly communicated strategy
* Consistently meeting customers’ expectations via superior operational execution
* Creating a high-performance, high-values culture
* Enabling a structure that simplifies working in and with the organization

There are four more, any two of which winners need to posses:
* Hiring superior talent at all levels
* Having a great leader
* Driving innovation in your industry
* Developing a strong mergers & partnerships capability

The Singing Bichon, a poem by Patrick Cotter.

The Irish poet Patrick Cotter was born in 1963 and educated at University College, Cork. After leaving college in the mid 80s, Cotter worked as Literature Officer at the Triskel Arts Centre before embarking on a career as a bookseller which ended in 2002. He continues to live and work in Cork as director of the Munster Literature Center. His poems have been translated into Estonian, Italian, Norse, Norwegian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish and he's given readings of his work in Ireland, California, Germany, Estonia, Norway, Italy and India. He's been shortlisted for both the Hennessy Award and the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Today's selection is from his first full-length collection of poems, Perplexed Skin, which was published by Arlen House in 2008.

The Singing Bichon by Patrick Cotter

My dog sings arias but only to me.
Mahler's Kindertotenlieder he knows
imperfectly. The In Paradisum
of Faure's requiem he renders
with a strong nasal strain.
He can't quite reach all the notes
of Purcells's The Plaint,
but hey, he's just a dog.

He began to sing
when I began to ignore him.
Neither of us can stand each other's company.
When he shakes his Bichon curls,
doggy whiffs tinged with bitter fermentations
assault the upper reaches of my nostrils.
His piss perfumes the corner of my living room
with a pungency made worse by the addition
(without obliteration) of the mop-bucket's
ammonia-based floor fluid.
I can't stand him because he smells.
He can't stand me because I'm impervious
to his plaintive, glistening eyes.

Regularly we each need to elude
the secret inner lives of our separate solitudes.
I, by listening to my music,
he by stepping outdoors to sniff
the arses of other dogs
or to beg attention of passing children.
After I ignored his whines to be let outside
he learnt to sing. That first night
I could not avoid paying attention
to his original interpretation
of Raphael Courteville's Creep, creep, softly creep
I released him. He arse-sniffed.

The following night I ignored his Courteville
and he sang something by Durefle.
I once tried to arrange a soiree
where I planned to accompany him on cello,
my living-room is too bijoux for the pianoforte,
but with the house full of guests
he had no solitude to escape
and no need to sing.
He doesn't know I know
he sings Rufus Wainwright
when he thinks I'm not around.
Smelly bastard.

When to terminate or demand a resignation.

It’s been 30-days since the conversation I described yesterday. However, there’s been no improvement in the employee’s performance or behavior. What to do?

It's time to have a second meeting, similar to the first, but this time spelling out the consequences for the employee and the company if the pattern continues. Consequences should include a written warning that continued non-performance or unsatisfactory behavior will be grounds for demotion or termination if not corrected in the next 30-days. Again, keep this meeting positive and to the point. Offer to assist in any way you can. After all, your job is to help the employee be successful, not to punish them or make them fail. And you should have some ownership of the issue since you hired this person in the first place. Good employees will appreciate the feedback because they really want to do a good job. Weak employees will give excuses time after time about what got in the way. So you have to be clear and get agreement that next time the desired results will be achieved, no matter what - or else.

If there’s no further change in the next 30-days, it’s time to act decisively. But first, I suggest reviewing the following checklist:

• Was a specific rule or policy violated and does the violation warrant termination?
• Was the employer’s rule or policy reasonable?
• Can you produce a copy of the rule or policy?
• Have other employees been held accountable for the same rule or policy? Has it been consistently applied in the past?
• Can you prove the employee knowingly violated the rule or policy?
• Has the employee complained of harassment or unfair treatment?
• Has the employee recently filed a workman’s compensation claim?
• Is the employee about to vest in certain benefits?
• Has the employee recently complained about a company wrongdoing or safety issue?
• Are there any current grievances or complaints pending?
• Were any promises made verbally or in writing to this employee by senior management?
• Is there any evidence of discrimination based on age, sex, race, religion, national origin, disability or any other legally protected characteristic?

Discharge interviews should be prompt, private, without blame, and should include a witness to confirm what took place. Don't say too much. Above all, avoid inflammatory language or anything you can't document. Certain terms sound inherently defamatory, such as "thief," "stealing," or "drug abuse." Use non-inflammatory descriptive terms that can be documented, such as "failure to properly account for items entrusted to his care", or "violated drug-free workplace policy by testing positive for [whatever]." Most states don't require an employer to give an explanation of the reason or reasons for discharge, and an employee isn't required to give an explanation for a resignation. If given, make the explanation brief and to the point. It's good practice to let one specific person in the company carry out all terminations so you minimize the risk that individual hard feelings might inadvertently result in statements that end up sounding defamatory in court.

In many cases, especially with professional employees, a negotiated resignation is better than a termination. In these cases, make sure you get a signed agreement that includes:

• a release of liability
• employee can’t reapply
• confidentiality of business information
• assignation of patents
• signed non-compete
• agreement not to steal staff

Termination or resignation is always a last resort remedy. You take it because the employee gives up on you, not because you gave up on them.

It’s my experience that employers tend to wait too long to deal with sub-standard performance issues, hoping they’ll somehow fix themselves or the problems will go away. This very seldom happens. If the desired behavior doesn’t change and you don’t give feedback, feedback was received anyway. Most people know when they’re not meeting expectations. When nothing is said, it’s interpreted as 'it isn’t a big deal.' By failing to address repeated failures, you set a bad example for others and discourage your best employees who are wondering why you don’t take appropriate action.

On-boarding new employees.

OK, you’ve hired the candidates and they’ve reported for work. What next? Very often, companies act like they’re no longer really interested in them. They’re shown where their desks are, where the toilets are, and given a copy of the employee handbook together with an explanation of the company’s benefits. Then they’re left to fend for themselves. Leaving new employees to their own devices at this stage risks inefficiency and eventually turnover.

I’ve found many successful companies instead provide each new employee with a coach or mentor on day one, someone who’s senior to them in the company to go to for answers, information and assistance. They meet with this mentor once a week for the first six-weeks to see how they’re doing and to find out how they view the company’s operations. They have a formal performance review after 90-days and again after 180-days to be sure their contributions are on track and to share feedback about goals and resources. By then, they should be well integrated into the new business.

However, sometimes new employees don’t appear to be working out. When this happens, you (their manager or supervisor) should meet with them and provide assertive criticism as follows:

• Name the issue. Be specific and direct – don’t beat around the bush. Identify the issue specifically and succinctly. This opening statement should take no more than sixty-seconds.

• Select a specific example that illustrates the behavior or situation you want to change. Use the brief, CNN version – drop most of the rest of the story around the example.

• Describe your emotions around this issue. Describe the emotions rather than being the emotions or expressing these emotions in this conversation. Deliver the message without the load.

• Clarify why this is important – what’s at stake to gain or lose for you, for others, for the unit, or for the company.

• Identify your contribution(s), if any, to this issue.

• Indicate your wish to resolve the issue.

• Invite the other party to respond.

Then be quiet! Insight occurs in the space between words. Let silence do the heavy lifting.

• Inquire into the other party’s views. Use paraphrasing and perception checking. Dig for full understanding; don’t be satisfied with just scratching the surface. Make sure the other party knows that you fully understand and acknowledge his/her position and interests.

• What was learned? Where are we now? What’s needed for resolution? What was left unsaid that needs saying? Are we ready to move on? What’s our new understanding? How will we move forward from here, given this new understanding?

• Make a new agreement and create a way to hold each other accountable for it. Clear agreements without effective follow up just won't work.

Tomorrow I’ll discuss what to do if the issue continues to be unresolved.