Category Archive: Tips For Employees

Jan 24

Three Salary Negotiation Techniques That Work

The recession has forced thousands of professionals to forego salary increases in order to keep their jobs. Now with recovery underway and indications of hiring increases, those same individuals may find salary negotiation a growing possibility. If you’ve experienced a salary freeze, it’s possible that you may find yourself thinking about seeking a new, higher-paying job over requesting a salary increase.

If you decide to maintain your current employment, salary negotiation or restructuring may be in order. Negotiating salary and benefits can be complicated. It can also be emotional, so you need to be prepared. Here we’ll cover the “3 Ps” of negotiations. With these tips and the strengthening economy, there’s a great chance that you can gain a higher salary or better benefits.

Prepare for Negotiation:

Approach salary negotiation as an art rather than a fight. It requires a higher level of skill and patience than arguing or demanding.

Be prepared to ask for what you want: a higher salary, better benefits. More vacation days, or a different position are among the most negotiated topics. Remember: if you don’t ask for it, you’ll never get it. Stand tall, calm your nerves and go into negotiations ready to ask for what you want.

Arrive prepared and do your research. Employers review salary data from their competition and across the industry. Know where your request stands along the spectrum, accounting for your experience, education, professional training and relevant certifications.

Determine your ideal salary number, and then consider a “lowest-possible” figure. If the counter offer remains below your “lowest possible”, know what will your next action will be?

List your accomplishments and successes. This will help define your qualifications and back up your request for a raise. Did you bring in a big client, launch a successful new product or manage difficult projects well? Be sure to articulate your successes during negotiations.

Practice the Skills of Negotiation

For those of us who only negotiate car and home purchases, practice is in order. Talk to a friend or family member about what you want. Have them play “devil’s advocate.” Work out what you’ll say, what you’ll leave out, and the structure of your negotiation. For this, it’s best not to ask a co-worker.

Proceed Carefully

Successful negotiators employ important skills you may already have like active listening, diplomacy, creativity and courtesy.

Strive to understand the other person’s point of view. Listening is as important as making your case. Hear what the HR manager is saying, you may hear clues that can boost your position or stance.

Ask questions, don’t assume. Going in convinced your employer won’t give you a raise doesn’t accomplish anything. You may be right – or not. You’ll only know by asking. You may discover that your boss is willing to give you a higher salary to keep you happy and motivated. You may find out areas to improve in order to get a raise down the road. Or you may find out there’s an indefinite salary freeze which could be what you need to hear in order to begin seeking employment elsewhere.

Be creative. If a higher salary is unattainable, what else would satisfy your specific needs? Increased benefits, higher commission, extra vacation time or the ability to work from home one day a week can often enrich your life as much as a raise can. Remember, in salary negotiation, everything is up for discussion.

Successful Salary Negotiation

Negotiations are successful when both sides feel good about the outcome: the classic win-win situation. Go in looking for a fight and you’ll probably get one, resulting in a win-lose or lose-lose situation. If you approach salary negotiations professionally, meaning you’ve prepared, practiced and proceeded with care and caution, you’ll impress your employer, boost your confidence and increase your odds of becoming a winner.

This article was provided by University Alliance and submitted on behalf of Villanova University. Villanova provides several human resources courses include human resources degree and HR certification programs.

(Note: Many elements of this article have specific pertinence to employment market dynamics in the US. India’s job scenario is obviously very different – however, the guidelines for salary negotiation are universally valid.)

5 comments

Aug 01

Got A New Boss Again: What To Do?

It is a well-known fact that established teams experience “transition pains” under the leadership of newly appointed managers. The stress levels go up, and both the parties use moves and countermoves to outwit each other. New managers, insecure in their roles, often seek absolute compliance to orders from their subordinates, particularly in their early days.

I’ve always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team – Lee Iacocca

In fact, most of the new managers struggle in their new roles initially along with their team members. Is there a way out? , yes of course if you want, you can turn it into a win – win situation for you and your manager.

Some of the common concerns of the team members are:

Will I get along with my new manager?
How do I make sure that my new manager recognizes the contributions I made before he/she arrived?
Will my work style clash with that of my new manager?
What new processes or procedures will my new manager put into place?
Will my performance and development suffer with this change?What changes will my new manager make to the team, my role, and my projects?
How can I build a positive relationship with my new manager?
How can I make sure my new manager recognizes my strengths?

Some of the common concerns of the newly joined managers are:

How can I establish my authority as manager without alienating my new team?
Will I get along with my new team?
Will my work style clash with that of my direct reports?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of my new team?
How can I build positive relationships with my direct reports?
What projects should be our top priority?
Who are the key players, and what are the unspoken rules of my new role?
What are the political “land mines” of my new job?
How do I quickly prove that I deserved this role?

If both sides keep on operating from fear and caution time shall pass, and one of the parties will win at the expense of other, more often than not it is the manager that wins, unless you are very strongly glued to your system, and any amount of pestering does not bother you. And always remember the saying – If you think your boss is stupid, remember: you wouldn’t have a job if he was any smarter.

Most of the times the senior management will support the newly appointed manager. They promise him/her the autonomy & authority to shape the team. I am not sure if this is the best way, and if it works against the interest of everyone. Nevertheless, your new manager has the backing and ears of the higher ups. Make no mistakes about this and the higher ups may give you an occasional ear to let off the steam without any long-term benefits.

So it’s in your best interest to help your new manager succeed because when managers struggle, so do their team members. You don’t need to do a lot to help your manager. The challenge for both the parties is to nurture a strong sense of common commitment to shared goals – rather than one of the blind allegiance to each other’s dictates. By having an open dialogue around your concerns you can change the dynamics. Some of the things which you can do make this a win –win transition are.

Be adaptable
Be open to change
Give feedback on ideas
Help your new manager learn responsibilities of new job.
Help your new manager learn teams shared objectives
Help your new manager learn team’s work methods/ processes
Share your strengths and weaknesses.
Share the top challenges which you are facing
Share what is the support that you are expecting from your new manager.

It’s helpful if you remain open for new ideas and be adaptable. However, that’s not enough. You’ll have a bigger impact if you also provide your new manager with insight into your strengths and weaknesses & offer timely feedback. How about writing a Welcome Letter to your new manager?

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

The author uses real life stories to demystify the day to day Human Resources Challenges we face at work. His HR Blog – Human Resources Blog endeavours to simplify the HR jargon.

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Jul 28

How Becoming a Leader Can Help You Get a Promotion

Many companies today are looking for leaders, not just managers, to take on greater roles within the organization. As a result, competition for higher-level positions can be fierce. Leaders have the ability to inspire others and foster teamwork, which leads to achieving results. No matter what your current position is, becoming a leader can help you stand out and increase your chances of securing a promotion.

Qualities of Workplace Leadership

A leader is someone who motivates, unites and guides others towards a common goal. Leaders are usually highly effective communicators who are competent, trustworthy and organized. They are also often charismatic and inspirational. In order to be recognized as a leader in your workplace, you should seek to exhibit the following:

Honesty – this builds trust with your co-workers and superiors
Passion – enthusiasm and excitement are positive and contagious, which draws others to you
Commitment – a strong work ethic and discipline make you highly productive and can create a favorable impression of you in others
Goals – by setting and working toward goals you show others that you are able to strategize and execute work to accomplish something meaningful
Humility – giving credit where it’s due and emphasizing the team’s efforts instead of just your own makes people more inclined to work with you and go the extra mile

In addition to the traits listed above, leaders are also adept at planning, strategizing, managing change, solving problems and creatively addressing opportunities and difficulties.

How to Show Your Leadership Skills

Most jobs offer opportunities to exhibit leadership qualities, no matter what the level or job title is. Below are a few key opportunities that you can use to demonstrate leadership skills and set yourself on the path to promotion:

Day-to-Day Work: By developing and maintaining a high standard of quality and productivity in your own work, you show that you’re ready to take on more responsibility. The absence of a good job performance will likely mean that you will be passed over for other opportunities to develop and display true leadership qualities.

Take on a Project: Projects can be one of the best ways to show leadership skills. You can volunteer to participate on projects or create your own opportunities by looking for steps you can take to improve a process or output. No matter what your role is on the project team, you should seek to exceed expectations. Meet or beat deadlines, show yourself to be a team player by giving credit to others when appropriate and offering a helping hand when needed, and produce work or results with excellence.

Assume a Formal or Informal Leadership Role:

If you’re in a supervisory capacity, your leadership quality may be judged mostly on your team’s productivity and quality. By helping your team set and achieve goals, prioritize work and maintain or improve quality, you can show that you’re ready for higher levels of responsibility. Even if your current position isn’t supervisory, you can still exhibit leadership qualities, which can positively influence co-workers and position you as a role model.

By implementing these suggestions, you can develop and demonstrate the leadership qualities that will help set you apart from other employees and can get you noticed when an opportunity for career advancement arises.

This guest post was provided by Jessica Edmondson who discusses online education in the business leadership and management industry.

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

1 comment

Jul 20

5 Ways To Impress Your Managers’ Boss

Most of the top management people do not have enough time on hand and generally make a quick first impression. I have noticed many a times that these one-of interactions are remembered for years and may make or mar the destiny of an employee. Quite a few senior level managers do test juniors to see what they are made of; some ask tough questions to see if you can handle them. Interacting with you gives them a sense of capabilities at the ground level.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression, never let them see you sweat.”

Making a good impression in front of your boss itself is tough and here we are taking about impressing your manager’s boss, does it seem far-fetched to you? It’s not impossible if you practice these 5 simple tips.

Be prepared for questions

Listen carefully to the questions, respond point wise. It’s best to avoid long answers and don’t choke yourself to death by trying to answer in a single breath. It’s good to answer in 30 seconds as it gives you time to frame your thoughts,

Most of the staff gets jittery when they are bombarded with questions. Don’t ramble and fake answers, most of the senior level managers will appreciate the answer –“I don’t know, however the question is quite intriguing and I will get back to you in three days with my thoughts.”

Some of us are caught off guard when the manager’s boss rejects your argument, if this is the case draw the other person out to see if you have been misunderstood and clarify. If that’s not the case, let the disagreement be as it is. Your manager’s boss may not respect you for starting an argument as soon you face disagreement.

Take a Chill Pill

Being nervous, anxious and uncomfortable around your manager’s boss is quite natural. However this should not prevent you from showcasing your best. Being nervous can at times lead to bodily reactions like sweating, stuttering, running out of breath and reddening of face while talking. In case any these symptoms appear take a break for five seconds and drink a glass of water. Thereafter compose yourself and continue doing what you were doing. Remember all you can do is the best you can do.

Rehearse the worst case scenario

List all your worries and fears on a sheet of paper and practice your responses in case you were to be asked about them. Try to rehearse responses with a colleague in front of the mirror. Your colleague should ask you counter questions. Rehearse what you are going to say multiple times, so that you can do it naturally without getting nervous.

Time is money

Baring a few individuals most of the bosses do not like to waste time. Treat their time with respect and plan how you will present yourself. The idea is to keep it crisp. We simply cannot reveal everything about ourselves to our managers and their bosses; it is impossible. We must edit the information to make it relevant to the occasion.

In case you are presenting make sure you have the logistics ready before time. Visit the venue of presentation before hand to get a view of seating arrangement, place yourself in central position so that you are audible. Check the font size and color on the screen, if necessary make adjustments well in advance. Advance preparation ensures that the meeting time is utilized productively.

Interact more frequently with top management

Try to meet senior level managers in informal gatherings and social events. You will be safe as most of the higher ups will avoid questions related to work in social gatherings. These events will allow them to know your hobbies and thoughts. You will soon realize that senior level managers are regular human beings like you, who have more experience in life. These informal interactions will make you feel more comfortable in dealing with them in official settings. Read the biographies of great people , they give you an insight into how senior level managers think and work.

To help us to accomplish our objectives in life, we “package” information to help audiences draw the “right” conclusion.

Impressing your manager’s boss is like presenting an edited work designed to convey key messages effectively. A textbook’s author picks and chooses information so that the reader gets to the point without getting overwhelmed or confused, similarly we must pick and choose information to manage the impression we create in front of our senior managers.

Thanks & be happy !

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Jul 15

5 Ways To Increase Your Productivity

All of face the brunt of higher demands on productivity, most of us have been working regular schedules and the only way to increase productivity is to work extra hours. That’s not a good solution as it will make you a work zombie who will do nothing more than work. Don’t get disheartened there is good news; you can use these 5 simple and highly effective ways to increase your productivity.

As Paul J. Mayer said “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”

Break down your work into tasks and sub tasks

Most of the successful projects have a common theme; all of them would have been broken down into activities and tasks with owners and resources assigned against each one of them. Ask yourself these questions.

What do you need to achieve?
How will you know if your task is successful – what’s the measurement?
What’s the timeline?
What resources do you need? – People, budget, tools, support etc.
How many of these resources are under your control?

Devil lies in the detail – chart out the process

You have a plan, so what? The next step is break down each of the tasks into process through which they will get accomplished. When a problem is large or complex, and the optimal solution is unclear, charting a process allows you to begin making progress towards a solution even though you can’t visualize the entire path at the first instance.

It will be a good idea to buy flow charting software to help you see the work progress sequentially. Use the software output to communicate your plan to others. Detailing the tasks improves your chances of success and Increases your productivity. A word of caution- Detailing the process is tiring.

Set up a monitoring mechanism

Once you have set your goals and the plan has been broken down into tasks with process steps, the next move is to set up traffic signals and lights to know your progress status. You should know how much time it would take to finish the plan, raise the red flag early by giving progress feedback to all your stakeholders. Deliver all good news / bad news in advance, senior management team hates surprises. Knowing where you stand is a very important aspect of increasing productivity.

Avoid the Activity trap and be focused

Research shows that effective managers focus of one or two key tasks derived from the organizational priorities.They tend to keep away from distractors and allied activities which generally fill up most up of our time. Don’t confuse being productive with being busy, most of the managers take on one or another task to fill the time.Always being busy can make you rigid and narrow-minded. Create free time or have quick breaks in between to get those creative, productive juices going again. If you have spare time go read a book rather than carrying someone else’s monkey on your back.

Manage your time

Plan your time and manage it against a spend plan, in case you have not been valuing your time start doing it now. Time will not come back and this life is only for once. Make the best use of it.

I read somewhere that 85 percent of the things you do account for only 15% of your results, and vice-versa. I think that’s a pretty important observation to increase your productivity. Figure out your largest time wasters and eliminate them to increase your productivity. Time management is the key to increasing productivity. Taking time to plan and set priorities for your life actually frees up more time rather than diving into the muddle of activities.

These five tips will help you in increasing your productivity by accurately scoping out your work and using efficient processes to deliver them. As Shia LaBeouf said “There’s a tendency to mistake preparation for productivity. You can prepare all you want, but if you never roll the dice you’ll never be successful.”

Thanks and be happy !

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Jul 12

Early Preparation is the Key to Successful Negotiation

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail is a very old saying and fits in aptly for negotiations. Any successful negotiation is about mutually agreeing to terms which lead to a long lasting relationship. Negotiations is never about scoring a quick one way victory at the expense of the other party.

Negotiation is your opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to a long-term relationship by maximizing value for both parties. And do remember that you may be a great negotiator however experience, bargaining skill, or persuasion cannot compensate for the absence of preparation.

Early preparation gives you an undisputed edge in negotiations, Research and history shows that early preparation and planning remain a weak area for many of us. Interpreted differently this means that you can gain an edge in the game in case you prepare in advance. This holds true for both sales and personal negotiations.

If you were to study successful negotiators like Gandhi, Martin Luther King or Roosevelt you will find one trait to be common among all of them, they always did their homework in advance. Most of the successful negotiators spend hours discussing the approach and their arguments/ counter arguments with their trusted aides. They read about the other party, find information through their network and try to find out what makes the other party act/ react.

By preparing in advance for negotiations you will be able to work out different scenarios and will feel more comfortable to deal with them during the course of negotiations. You will be able to display calmness during the course of negotiations. Look at Chess champions like Gary Kasparov or Anand Viswanathan. What do they do during a game? , they calculate the greatest number of maneuvers possible, move by move. And by chance can you guess what do they do before the game? They study their opponent’s previous games one by one. In addition they also study their opponent’s psychology, resistance to stress, break points etc.

Most of the people I know skip this stage as it may not be as stimulating as the actual discussions. Don’t make this mistake and repent later on.

So where should you start from once you have decided to negotiate .The first step is to get informed and study the issue on hand. You need to develop an overall view of the situation. To do this ask yourself the following questions

What is this issue about?
What are the problems that I can foresee?
Who does it involve?
Why does it involve the people who are involved – what are their interests and objectives?
What are the motives of the people involved in the issue?
What are the different versions of the facts on the same issue?
What information do I have at my disposal?

Early negotiation preparation includes thinking about differences in a constructive way.

Differences can be an asset! Differences can be traded as they rarely have equal value to both sides. An issue might have less priority to you and a greater priority to the other side. “The Chinese use two brush stokes to write the word “crisis”

One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger – but recognize the opportunity”. Negotiation preparation helps you to convert impending crisis to an opportunity.

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Jul 03

20 Ways to Kill Your Job Application!

We spend a great deal of time talking to recruiters, employers and human resource staff every week. I recently sent an email asking some of them what they would list as their top 3 peeves when it came to receiving resumes and short-listing candidates. You should have seen my inbox fill up with responses! Many were repeated, so I thought I would share a list of the top 20.

Straight from the mouths of the people reading your resumes:

Rambling! I wish people would get to the point. I haven’t got time to read a novel.
Resumes that are a straight list of duties. Tell us what you did differently, what you did well.
I want people to tell me how they meet my need. If not, I move on to the next resume. Simple.
People who don’t meet the criteria for the role. If you don’t have the essential skills required, then don’t apply. Essential and desirable criteria are listed for a reason.
Career Objectives. OMG, these are so annoying. I don’t want to know what you want. I want to know what you can do for me!
Incorrect contact details. If an email bounces or the wrong phone number has been given, I won’t search for them, I’ll just move on to the next application.
Poor grammar and spelling mistakes. It amazes me how many people apply for a role where written business communication is a major component of the role and send me a resume riddled with errors. These people usually claim they pay attention to detail as well!
An application addressed to someone else. Its obvious they use the same application for every job and haven’t changed the salutation. These usually hit the shredder.
Clutter. Personally, I can’t stand looking at resumes that are jammed so tight and written using the smallest font to get as much information on the page as possible. They are too hard to read and very unappealing.
A cover letter that repeats, verbatim, what is in the resume. Why bother? You’ve wasted my time and yours.
Long resumes. Resumes longer than 3 pages lose me.
When you call a candidate about a job application and they say something along the lines of “Sorry, what job is this about again?” Keep track of your applications.
Resumes without dates for each position. My first thought is “What are you trying to hide?”
I’m sick of reading that everyone is a team player, has attention to detail and can see the big picture. Really? Prove it.
When I ask about salary expectations and get the “What is this role offering?” question in return. You should have an expectation and be prepared to discuss it.
Candidates who can’t make the time for an interview. I spent close to 20mins on the phone the other day with a woman who couldn’t seem to lock in a time to meet. It interfered with soccer practice, music practice, a monthly ‘girls’ movie night, and of course, her current role. If you’re serious about job hunting – make the time to be available for the interview.
Template driven resumes. One day recently I saw 4 resumes, the exact same format, and in some sections, the exact same wording! Write it yourself or get a reputable writer to do it for you.
Resumes that are not in chronological order. It is too hard to follow resumes that jump all over the place.
Trying to figure out locations of positions. People who have worked internationally or nationally need to include this information – I am not an atlas!
Gaps in employment that haven’t been explained. I know you will have a reason for it, but try telling me, I’m not a psychic.

So there you have it …. 20 ways in which to kill your application and lose an opportunity. I hope by sharing these, you will be able to avoid some of these pitfalls in your job search.

This article is contributed by Michelle Lopez of One2One Resumes.

E: [email protected]

W: www.one2oneresumes.com.au

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Jun 25

How To Crack HR Interview – Using STAR Model

Using the STAR method is one of the most effective ways of getting your message across to potential employers whether in your resume or at interview. Applied correctly the STAR method can significantly improve your job search. It works!

The STAR acronym stands for:

Situation
Task
Action
Result

Following the STAR technique enables you to give employers a clear, concise and informative response which outlines a situation and the part you played. It tells them how you approached the task and the results of your actions. This gives credibility to your claims.

So how does it work?

Situation: Give an example of a work situation you were involved in with a positive outcome. Briefly outline the situation and your role.

Task: Describe the tasks involved. What were your tasks, duties or responsibilities? What needed to be done? What obstacles had to be overcome?

Action: Describe the action you took to address the situation. What did you do? What steps did you take to complete the task? What was the allocation of resources and/or people involved?

Result: Describe what resulted from your actions. What was the outcome? What were the improvements or benefits? How did the situation end?

An example of a STAR response in an interview works like this:

Question: Can you tell me about a time when you increased sales?

Answer: In my role at ABC Pty Ltd I was hired to drive sales by actively reaching new customers. There was also a major problem with declining sales from existing customers. Many were no longer purchasing from us and of those that were, the frequency and volume had significantly decreased. (Situation/Task)

The first thing I did on commencement was telephone all existing customers including those who hadn’t purchased with us in awhile. I introduced myself as a new member of staff and asked them for feedback on our products and service. I catalogued their feedback into an Excel spreadsheet and identified the key areas of concern. I presented my findings to management who were alarmed to find so many customers dissatisfied with the delivery contractors they were using. (Action)

As a result of this, management negotiated a new delivery contractor who promised to deliver on time. I notified every customer, both in person and in writing, and actively sought their business with an assurance of improved delivery service.

In 6 months I had increased sales in the division by 45% (from 26k to 38k) and am proud to say, managed to get all but 3 customers to buy from us regularly again. (Result)

Can you see how this technique is so effective at actually telling the employer not just what you did, but how you did it and the resulting benefits? Applied to your resume, this technique gives instant credibility to your claims.

Think about using the STAR method for your next interview and why not take a look at your resume again. Could it be improved now you understand the technique?

This article is contributed by Michelle Lopez of One2One Resumes.

E: [email protected]

W: www.one2oneresumes.com.au

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

1 comment

Jun 20

Want to stay on track with your New Year resolutions?

Last week I met up with a former client who I had not seen for some time. He was disappointed with himself because, although he had set himself some career goals for the New Year, everyday stuff had taken over and he had done absolutely nothing about them. I persuade him that all was not lost.

Does this sound familiar? This scenario is commonplace for many of us at some time or another when reaching out for something new and challenging. I have learned that the first thing is not to “beat yourself up”. You did go to the trouble to set goals in the first place and, funnily enough, your disappointment shows that you still care and have commitment. Just take a bit of time to review the goals and recall the benefits they will bring. Of course, if, on reflection, you find that the benefits no longer apply or aren’t sufficient then move onto something else. If other pressures are stopping you moving forward you should think about de-cluttering and creating some space in your life.

Be selfish and say “no” to some people and some commitments. Most of all give yourself credit for what you have achieved and recognise your strengths. If you believe in yourself, so will others. Enjoy the journey one step at a time.

In the best tradition of project management my former client went away to adapt his plan and set revised completion dates whilst keeping to the goals!

So, here’s the thing…………

Write your goals down and keep them in a place where you will be reminded of them every day.
Plan! Plan! Plan!
Get rid of some other unnecessary activities to create time and space for your new goals.
Say “no” to things that are not really important.
Regularly view your goals and remind yourself of the benefits that achievement will bring.
Revise your plans and re-energise the project as and when you feel your energy slipping away.
Recognise your achievements and give yourself proper credit.
Enjoy the journey!

This article is contributed by Dave Partridge and Michaela Partridge from Work’s A Dream

www.WorksADream.com

Thanks

Jappreet Sethi

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Mar 23

Managing e-mail Overload – 10 Tips for Success

One of the common challenge employees face is how to manage e-mails, not be managed by it. Time is a zero sum game. You can spend your precious time on an e-mail or spend it on doing something else. As on date e-mail is the most heavily used mode of business communication. As per a research corporate e-mail users on average receive 126 e-mails per day (excluding spam) and spend more than 41% of their time managing e-mail.

Most of the corporate staff is drowning in email tsunamis; they are just overwhelmed with the load.What can you do? These ten tips will help you in managing e-mail overload.

Take time to draft the subject line in e-mail

The subject line of an e-mail should summarize the message; it has to be specific and crisp. Use the subject field to briefly summarize the content of the e-mail. This allows the recipient to prioritize e-mails and to find them later when they are archived. You can change the subject line as the subject of the e-mail thread changes. As you send each e-mail, ask yourself, “Does the subject line accurately summarize the message?”

In today’s world most of the business people use handhelds to look at e-mail, the screens are short and 50 words subject would be a sure shot disaster to view.

Be clear and concise in e-mail

You should be clear as to why you are writing the e-mail so that the reader gets to the crux fast.

Give the reader the full context and main idea in the beginning of the e-mail. This allows the recipient to respond and prioritize more easily, and saves them from having to scroll through numerous previous messages.
Keep the message in the e-mail short and to the point. Keep in mind the time constraints of your co-workers.
Limit yourself to one issue per e-mail. This encourages each topic to be addressed separately and helps in sorting and prioritizing.
Avoid using irony and hints in your e-mail. It is more difficult to discern subtleties in text. Avoid misinterpretation by writing clearly.
If no reply is necessary, say so. This eliminates confusion, saves the recipient time, and decreases overall volume of e-mail.

e-mail Layout

Reading on a screen is different form reading a print out. Try to keep the paragraphs short and do leave a space in between to increase visual clarity in an e-mail. Some pointer to keep in mind

Avoid using Capital letters in an e-mail, it is considered to be very rude.
Don’t go overboard with exclamation marks! in an e-mail , save them for an occasional congratulations
Try avoiding fancy and artistic fonts in e-mail, they are hard to read
Stick to black font color in an e-mail – blue is the standard when you are responding to an email
Avoid using emoticons and abbreviations in business e-mail – reserve them for FB chat

Try to close the loop in e-mail

E-mails often have several action items and queries. Make sure you address all the items in your response. Failure to do so will result in an e-mail ping pong and it will cost you time and energy. In case you don’t have the answer, be forthright about it.

Include the Message in e-mail

While replying to the e-mail it is best to choose the Reply button, if you click the new mail option, the e-mail thread will not be included. Including the thread gives the recipient background to the email.

Read twice before sending

In most of the countries an e-mail is considered to be a piece of evidence in the court of law. Whatever you write can be held against you. Desist writing an emotionally charged e-mail. It will be on record and the other party may use it against you in the future. If sending a stern and direct e-mail is important- a good way is to first send it yourself and then read it before sending it again to the intended recipient. This five minute activity works wonders when you are boiling in anger.

TO & CC dilemma

When you are sending an e-mail to multiple people, address your expectations and needs to each person. You should State your expectations. Be clear on what the recipient(s) is expected to do, and how and when you would like their response.

“To” should be used for the primary recipients.
“cc” (carbon copy) should be used when you want to keep someone informed regarding a particular issue, but do not require the person to act upon your e-mail. Before you cc a person, ask yourself, “Is the purpose to keep someone generally informed of what you are doing?” If so, send a separate single status report rather than a large volume of cc e-mails. A directed e-mail is more efficient and more likely to get attention from the recipient.
“bcc” (blind carbon copy) should not be used. Information relevant to the copied person should be sent separately.

Managing Attachments in e-mail

You don’t want to send heavy attachments vide e-mail; it consumes a lot of bandwidth. While you may want to share the photos of an office party with all your colleagues, imagine if your entire office was downloading the entire 20 MB file at one time. The system can come to a grinding halt and you may miss on important emails. It’s best to use a share drive or upload it to Picasa.

In case you have an Attachment in the e-mail, Call attention to the attachment in the message, explain why you included it, and make clear what you expect the reader to do with it.

Managing e-mails

Most of the people have difficulty reigning in the impulse of constantly responding to e-mails. This perpetual multitasking reduces effectiveness, unless your role is to reply to email’s only (Helpdesk/ escalation point).

If possible designate an e-mail time.Check your e-mail at predetermined times and alert your co-workers as to your timing. When you do check your in-box, sort and prioritize the new e-mails, and decide if the e-mail should be handled immediately or later.
The “Auto-Check” function should be turned off at all times.Remove visible and audio notifications as they often prove distracting.
Use flags to mark e-mails to address later. Decide which colour is most important to separate the “to do” e-mails.
Research indicates that more than 53% of the e-mail you receive is not a high priority to you. However we still tend to read and respond to these “easy” or low priority e-mail first. These unimportant e-mail distract you and take your time and focus away from the e-mail that are really important and awaiting your immediate attention – Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize!

How to use FYI

FYI (For Your Information) should be used in the subject row when a message is forwarded to colleagues. This makes it faster and easier to prioritize messages in the inbox and to apply rules for incoming messages.

It is in our hands to be a slave to the technology or use it to increase our productivity;an e-mail is one of such great tools. If you do not tame it early on you will spend a lifetime catching up with e-mail overload. E-mail is simultaneously the most used business application and the number one killer of productivity.The choice is in your hands.

Jappreet Sethi

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Dec 30

Redefine Your Limits – Live to your Full Potential

We are limited by the beliefs we set in our mind, history shows that successful people are able to break these shackles and unleash their potential. The difference is the “ T ” between Can Do and Can’t Do. The “ T ” is your Thought.

Achieving your Potential

Steve Jobs was one of the best examples of breaking free of boundaries set by human mind; he questioned the traditional thoughts and his failure and unleashed his potential to create history.

Steve Jobs said in his autobiography:

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. [...] Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did .We limit our growth by putting limitations and glass ceiling on them and tell ourselves that I cannot go any further.

Where do these Self Limiting Beliefs come from?

These beliefs may have a represented a valid limit in the past, like your inability to write a speech when you were a toddler. As you grow you learn / unlearn skills and progress in life, it would have been logical to move beyond the original limitations set by you. Incidentally for some of us, this does not happen and we continue to hold on to them.

Failures are building blocks of success and not meant to be chains of trauma which will never let you live that way you wanted to live. Life will throw brickbats at you and it may be a different one each time, don’t accumulate all of them in note book, some of them may not repeat. Like Steve Jobs you can make your greatest failure into your greatest success.

Thoughts which ground you to do the same things day in day out and blame destiny for it will never allow you to live fullest to your potential.

The Flea Experiment

Put Fleas in an open transparent jar ,they can jump extremely high and are fully capable of jumping right out of the jar. Then if you put a clear lid on the jar, the fleas jump and bump their heads on the lid feeling the pain. The fleas eventually realize that they are unable to escape the confinement of the jar . Over the next hour or so the fleas give up and only jumps to the brim of the jar. Its a very Intelligent way to adapt to situation and avoid pain.

Later on when the lid is removed the fleas will not jump any higher. It continues to believe that it cannot get out of the jar and stops trying. The barrier has vanished physically but mentally it still present and hard coded.

And further more each flea is totally convinced that it is trying to escape just as hard as they can. But they are wrong! There was a barrier, but it’s no longer there!

So what are your Self Limiting Beliefs?

It is difficult to think outside the set beliefs. We use our beliefs to predict the future as connection is old data and experiences. You must look at things differently, Try to identify your self-limiting beliefs and see how you can break free of them.

How long have you been jumping just to the height that keeps everybody happy, without taking the risk of trying that little bit harder? Occasionally it may be worthwhile to bang your head against the limit; you may discover that the barrier is no longer there.

We all have our self-limiting beliefs, look at things you would want to do but have a coding that you cannot do it. Then re-look at the environment and your resources. Maybe you have acquired new abilities that will make you succeed this time. Knock the ” T ” off.

Jappreet Sethi

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Dec 17

Tips to Make Your Career Development Plan Work

Career Development is a favourite topic on the agenda of employees and their managers. Career development plans are created at the start of the year and then put on back burner till the year end or next formal performance appraisal. What can you do to avoid getting into this trap and use it to propel career growth and pay raise.

The following tips are provided to help you ensure that your career development plans are relevant and reflect the skills and capabilities you want or need to build in a world where change is the only constant!

Does the Career Development Plan work for you?

At the end of the day, it’s your development and your career. You are responsible for proactively ensuring that your development is in line with your own performance expectations or career aspirations.

Prepare in advance

Most of the employees feel that they are in grip of their career and walk in unprepared for the career plan review meetings with their manger. The discussions are generally vague with a lot of feel good factor and no solid action. Knowing your manager very well cannot be the excuse for not having prepared for the meeting.

Is the Career Development Plan still relevant?

The world economy is undergoing major changes and global cycles are shorter and deeper, it may make sense to validate some of your goals against the economic reality, industry needs and your current job responsibility. Don’t get me wrong, it does not mean changing the goals every six months; however it may need alteration for maximum career benefit.

Is the Career Development Plan achievable in time frame set by you?

It is your career and you set the pace for your developmental goals with a timeline, what is the fun in setting goals which are not achievable in a set time and giving yourself a too big a stretch every time. Take a tough look at the time-lines, You can increase the pace over a period of time. My advice would be to start slow and build momentum on the way, A great career is marathon and not a sprint race.

Does it incorporate recent developmental feedback?

You may have gained new insights in your working style which helps you see your strengths and limitations in a better way. In case the recent feedback is important for you to grow in career, make sure you incorporate it in the career development plan.

Do you have a new Manger?

In case you have a new manager it may be good to run your career development plan with him, make sure you tell the current plan has been set in consultation with your old manager and you would review the progress with him quarterly. After a six month period your new manger would have settled down and you should sit review the plan with him intensely. You need to align the thoughts / goals of your manger’s role with the plan.

Make optimum usage of resources at hand

Both time and money are scarce resources in the modern corporate world. Take the time to review your manager’s coaching efforts to date, and see if they are aligned with your career developmental plan. If you wish to make changes to your development plan, you should be prepared to discuss how your manager can best help you achieve any new goals

Make sure that your career plan balances current performance expectations with future career aspirations and challenges you to build on your strengths . Always remember that there will be resources which you want and never get, maybe due to economic factors or your mangers visible or unstated constraints. Make best use of what you have readily available and not what you continue to fight for. Successful people make career out of what they have on hand and seldom squander energy on what they cannot have.

Jappreet Sethi

22 comments

Dec 13

How To Set Your Goals This Year

George Harrison said it all when he sang “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”…

Goal setting is about fine-tuning the direction in which you want to go in a pre-determined period. In a very important way, it is about taking the locus of control over your life in your hands rather than resigning yourself to fate or destiny. We all know people who blame the destiny for what is happening to them. The idea behind goal setting is not to be one of them.

How To Set Your Goals

Setting goals is one of the easiest things to do. However, most of us don’t do it on time, or limit ourselves to the notoriously failure-prone concept of New Year resolutions. Here are the basic steps to effective goal setting:

Determine what do you want

You should be able to describe to yourself precisely what kind of results you want. Your also need to be clear on how they will impact your life and the lives of people around you. Once you have these points clear in your mind, close your eyes and visualize how you would feel about this success.

Be clear on the implications

Choose your goals freely, but be aware of how much and what kind of efforts are required to attain them. Picture this effort on a day-to-day basis – what can you keep of your present lifestyle, and what will you have to let go? While the destination may be tempting, you need to know what the journey will be like. No matter how desirable the goal is, you don’t want to miss out on the things that are very important to you. Life is a precious, limited commodity and must be experienced in the here and now.

For example – if you want to move on to a fast-track career and adopt a lifestyle that involves responding to all emails in 90 seconds (fastest finger first on Blackberry), be aware that you will be sacrificing sleep, personal space and family time. If your goal is a high-powered, swanky title y, be ready to deal with the stress that comes with it. There are no free lunches.

Determine a time-frame

Things seldom get done if you don’t put a deadline to them. If you are a chronic procrastinator, break your goals down into milestones, set up mini-deadlines and establish the necessary time metrics for their achievement.

To illustrate, many of us are haunted by the feeling that we did not do enough in the last few years of our lives. With such a demon dogging our heels, we will be tempted to hit the dirt track at full speed and try to achieve everything in a year. The chances of burnout are very high in such a situation. Remember that the journey has to enjoyable. Spread your goals out in a way that allow you to have fun while you achieve them.

Map the journey

Rome was not built in a day and not by one person alone, though Caesar gets most of the credit for it. Achieving ambitious career goals is always about leveraging one’s network and garnering support. If your goal is your mission, then you are a missionary – and no missionary achieves his mission without external resources. Your network of resources will amplify your efforts to achieve what you want.

Ensure that the resources you require are available to you, and that they are not based on assumptions. Accept your limitations and know that it is foolhardy to try to do everything yourself. Collaborating with others is the key. Concentrate on things you are really good at and use others’ strengths to support you in your weaker areas.

Are you getting paid for it?

You will often experience frustration and resentment at not recognized if you are not paid enough for the work you do. These negative feelings will hamper you in reaching your goals. If you don’t get paid enough for the goals you seek to achieve, you need to determine if achieving the goal is worthwhile even without the benefit of commensurate monetary compensation.

If you feel that you deserve appropriate compensation for the extra efforts involved in achieving your goals, discuss with your manager what the rewards would be if your hit the target. Of course, this depends on whether the company would see value on you achieving your goals. Your goal achievement would need to be quantifiable if you want to a fair shake for your success.

Measure the success of your goals

Success means different things to different people – there is no one-size-fits-all approach. If you want to sustain the drive to achieve, your goals must be in harmony with your values. This involves summing up what you feel is important in life and checking your goals against these values regularly:

Establish:

What makes you up (what are your values )
What do you want out of this life
What you don’t want to be known for
What do you want to be remembered for after this life is over.

Keep the faith!

Jappreet Sethi

16 comments

Dec 10

The Principles Of Personal Success

Knowing what the ingredients of a successful life are is important in terms of our social, professional and personal lives. Taking these principles to heart will also ensure that we reach obtain the maximum benefit from all relationships that we forge on these three levels.

Here are some of the principles that drive successful people:

Successful people know how to optimize what they have

They fully understand what their strong points are and the value these have in terms of their careers or business success. They know how important it is to develop their skills and leverage their strengths in their growth and development.

They know how to manage their energy levels

Successful people monitor and prudently ration out their energy. They do not depend on stimulants like coffee to get them going or depressants like alcohol to help them wind down.

They are firmly rooted in reality

Successful people spend their time and energy in things that can be controlled, like the present and the future. They know how to avoid impulses that relate to things they cannot control. In other words, they do not allow themselves to become resentful, complain, blame or engage in wishful thinking. They accept the difficult and harsh realities of life and know how to deal with challenging situations.

Successful people take responsibility

They understand that what happens in their lives is based on their own choices, not those of others. This means that they take responsibility for what has happened, is happening and will happen in their lives.

Successful people are consistent in their interactions with people

They know their weaknesses and strengths of character, and this helps them to change how they think, feel and behave with others. This allows people to feel safe and grounded in their presence.

They have a clear vision of the future

They know what they want and what they need to do to achieve it. They identify their goals, determine how to attain those goals and act accordingly.

Successful people know they have personal freedom of choice

They take this fact as a constant given, and not something that they need to earn. At the same time, they fully accept the responsibility that is part and parcel of this freedom. In other words, they feel free to make their own choices but are also completely willing to accept responsibility for the results of these choices.

They have developed the fine art of prioritization

At all stages and in all situations, successful people either know instinctively or reason out what is most important, what comes after that and what should come last.

They have inquisitive minds

Successful people are not satisfied with garden-variety or popular answers to certain questions. They have the ability to see beyond the obvious, discern the intricacies of a given problem and apply lateral thinking in finding solutions.

They are capable of change if the situation requires it

At the same time, they are also capable of remaining firm according to what a given situation requires. This means that they can admit that they are wrong and correct an erroneous course if required. At the same time, it also means that they have the strength of character to stand by their convictions if they know that they are right.

In short, personal success is based on self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-responsibility. A success-oriented mind-set requires great discipline and constant reinforcements. Because of this, you will invariably find success-oriented people attending whatever trainings, seminars, coaching opportunities and counselling sessions to maintain their focus and forward momentum.

Use the above as a check-list to determine if you are on the path of success. If you feel you are not, remember that it is never too late to change course and set sails in the right direction. All the best on your success journey!

Keep the faith!

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Nov 29

How To Switch Jobs In A Market Slowdown

All things considered, this is not the best of times for switching jobs in India. This country has seen a fair bit of negative fallout of the economic problems in Europe and the US, and most MNCs in India are tightening their belts on recruitment. If you are looking to get a senior-level job in one of the bigger corporates, you will need to rethink the traditional job switching strategies.

Move Beyond Job Portals

To begin with, move beyond job portals like Naukri.com and Monster.com. In the current scenario, these platforms may not offer you what you are looking for. While they do serve their purpose at certain job levels, they may not be of great help to those seeking high-level placements. In times when good jobs are hard to come by, all you will find on these portals is the jobs that are not being filled because they are less than lucrative.

Remember that the HR departments of most MNCs have their own trusted recruitment routes and networks, and turning to job portals is usually their last option. Even when the occasional senior management job pops up there, your chances of your application getting short-listed are pretty slim. The queue is simply too long.

How To Get Through To Real Decision Makers

If you are looking for a senior management job today, your only real hope is to get face-time with senior decision makers within such companies. If you attempt to do this via the company’s HR department, the odds are heavily stacked against you. As already mentioned, the HR department of this company would already be in contact with the most suitable candidates in their database. You, as a stranger to this database, are therefore a wild card at best.

How do you manage to meet the senior decision makers and bypass the HR route? Tap into your own industry contacts and start working upwards till you get an email ID, a mobile number or a direct line. Remember not to shoot straight for the top. There is no point in talking to the CEO, since he or she will probably not be aware of the company’s managerial needs. Also, CEOs are unlikely to entertain unsolicited calls or emails, which would usually be fielded by their PAs. What you need is a direct line to the head of the department you are aiming to join.

Upgrade Your Resume to Reflect Your Achievements

Sit down with your existing resume and mercilessly edit out everything that looks like window dressing. Forget about your hobbies and club memberships. Never mind your personal objectives or ‘mission statement’. In a job recession, the only things that matter are your abilities to beef up a company’s bottom line.

Succinctly state how your skills can help make a difference to the department in terms of increased sales and greater visibility. Mention your past successes in some detail. Do not forget to include credible references. If you find yourself stumped, using a good resume writing service may be a good option.

Make A Strong Case In Your Covering Letter

Once your resume has been amended, compose a brief, winning covering email, attach your updated CV and send it to your designated ‘mark.’ If you have a phone number, follow up with a call later in the day. Explain that you are eager for a personal meeting to discuss your potential worth to the company. This direct and forthright approach is very likely to get you noticed. It emphasizes the fact that you have courage and conviction, and that you know what it takes to get something done.

Follow Up Strategically

Sending your resume is the start of the game, not the end – the action starts now. Make sure you follow up periodically. Find out if someone else knows the decision maker and get a reference call to him or her. It is all about making your case stronger than that of other possible applicants. However, temper your follow-ups with prudence – you do not want to seem desperate, either.

Networking In Conferences Works

The other way is to increase networking opportunities so that you can bump into senior executives at conferences, seminars and panel discussions. It would work best if your are actively participating in the event, since you could strike strategic conversations. In the course of such conversations, it becomes easy to infer that you would be interested in working for the organization. Often, companies sponsor executives for such events. However, my advice would be to not shy away from investing in an entry ticket. It pays off in the long run.

Jappreet Sethi

3 comments

Nov 26

How To Achieve Career Mastery

You have worked hard at mastering yourself – your habits, your outlook on life, your relationships and your finances. Now is the time to master the course of your career, as well. You achieve career mastery when you can integrate your personal development and growth into your professional growth and development.

There are different elements for career mastery.

Becoming Proactive: The most important aspect of career mastery is going after what you want. This means identifying your goal and taking the necessary action towards it. It will not be easy, which is why you have avoided taking these steps in the past. Getting proactive about your career also means that you will regularly have to overcome barriers and limitations. You do not have to overcome everything at once; all that is required it consistent action
Networking: Obviously, you will need to interact with other people and build your treasury of valuable contacts. If you have not been very successful at this so far, you may have overlooked one very important aspect of connecting with others. You need to understand that to effectively connect with other people, you need to connect with yourself first. In other words, you have to gain a thorough understanding of who and what you are. Once you have this understanding, networking with the right people becomes effortless.
Becoming Informed: Have you put all your time and effort into staying informed about issues related to your current profession – to the exclusion of everything else? This is a mistake, because it closes you off from other career options. Career mastery may involve changing the current story-line altogether. Inform yourself about other professions that may interest you, as well.
Knowing Your True Potential: It is important to know your potential and your strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to focus on what is feasible and workable in your professional life, and save you the wasted time and effort of Quixotic endeavors.

These principles hold true whether you are working for an organization or self-employed. The idea is to take charge of your career, no matter how and where you are placed right now. Remember that the onus of career mastery is completely on you – the world does not owe you better opportunities. Other people will not promote you in your professional life – only you can do that. Throughout your professional life, you will have to accept total responsibility for right and wrong career decisions.

Here is a fundamental standard to guide you in whatever you do from now on – you will only succeed at something if you love doing it. Successful people do not create and build their careers or businesses for economic reasons alone. They succeed because they love their company, their jobs or their business.

Probably the biggest challenge here lies in knowing what you really love to do. It is difficult to find and attain your true potential when you choose to act solely on the basis of logic and common sense. Peter Senge, the American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has correctly pointed out that adults have little sense of real vision. Most of us have goals and objectives in our lives, but having a vision and following up on that vision is a very different ballgame.

Changing or shifting your career as a professional or an entrepreneur is not easy. You have to master yourself first before you start changing. Career mastery begins with self-mastery. Self-mastery, in turn, begins with uncompromising self-examination, facing up to the immutable truths of one’s abilities and potential, and following through with determined, concerted action.

Jappreet Sethi

1 comment

Nov 20

Reharnessing Painlessly After Long Leave

Returning to work after a long leave is not always an uplifting experience. The mind and metabolism are likely to have adapted to a more leisurely pace, and one may have taken active steps to dissociate from work pressures during the period of leave. This is especially true if the period of leave has been an extended one.

Even if the leave was for attending to personal work rather than for pure relaxation, an employee is bound to experience a disconnect from day-to-day work life on returning to it. There may an overload of emails to attend to, and a number of other accumulated tasks – which would have usually been tackled on a day-to-day basis – to address. Many employees also entertain subtle or overt fears of redundancy even before taking long leave. Specifically, they fear that being absent from work for a long-enough time would cause them to be replaced.

Another variant of the redundancy fear is, “What if they have found out that they don’t really need me at all?” This fear is not uncommon in a scenario where companies are actively ‘right-sizing’ their employee force in order to cut costs. The psychological pressure of this fear can cause many employees to feel extremely intimidated during the first couple of days at work after returning from long leave.

Redundancy fears will wane on their own once the employee has got back into a regular work routine. However, the realities of accumulated work remain. Progressive managers will factor in this very understandable phenomenon and allow the employee a couple of days of readjustment to the workplace routine.

All said and done, one should not expect too much from oneself immediately upon returning from a long leave. It is best to schedule important meetings for a couple of days after being back in harness, and to avoid having an overload of commitments waiting to be tackled. A quick email to one’s manager before returning, asking for a day or two of slower pace till one is fully into the workplace routine again, is perfectly acceptable.

Above all, it is important not to squander the energy generated during a period of R&R on work-related worries, but rather to harness and utilize it in a graded manner for optimal and sustained productivity. This will benefit everyone concerned. It makes sense for employees returning from long leave to spare a few hours prior to actually returning to the office in planning the first three days of work.

Jappreet Sethi

5 comments

Nov 10

Indispensible Email Skills For Job Seekers And Employees

If you are about to apply for a job via email, the quality of your emailed covering letter to the potential employer is extremely important. After all, you are marketing yourself. This means that the employer’s HR department will first judge your capabilities by how you introduce and portray yourself. If clothes make the man (or woman), then his or her words make the aspiring employee.

In many cases today, emails have degenerated to offensively abbreviated messages. Job seekers seem to assume that the quality of their emails is not as important as their actual work. The point is that the Human Resources departments of the most prestigious companies today will ignore badly worded emails containing chat-like abbreviations, spelling errors and grammatical bloopers. They are looking for serious, properly educated, well-spoken employees who take pride in their communication skills and will be assets to the company.

Here are some pointers on effective email writing to help you get that lucrative corporate job:

State your business clearly in the subject line. For example: ‘Application for the position of _______’, ‘Response to your advertisement for __________’, etc. In direct email inquiries to you, the company’s HR department will have used a relevant subject line. Simply hit ‘reply’ while answering – do not change the subject line.
Be brief and to the point – Do not bore the HR operative with long introductions. Get to the point. State your name and experience, and express interest in working for the company. End with your complete contact details.
Include your CV and scans of experience certificates and additional qualifications. When it comes to your CV, remember that in most cases, the company’s HR operative is not interested in your future career aspirations.
Run a spell check and grammar check before sending. Most email platforms feature these today. If yours does not, write your email in Word first and run a spell and grammar check. Then copy it into your email window.
Maintain the right tone. Be businesslike and straightforward. Do not use superfluous words or language. Also, ensure that you use technical or business jargon sparingly. While you do need to impress the HR operative at this stage, you do NOT want to exasperate or intimidate him or her.

Nor do these email guidelines apply only to job applicants. In the rapidly globalizing India of today, your language and diction matter in EVERY email, be it an internal mailer or a response to a client. It is simply not good enough anymore to merely be a black belt in spoken English.

Most lines of business communication today begin with an email. The quality of language employed in our written electronic communications can therefore be a make-or-break point in many business situations. Remember that every email you send is, in more ways than one, an ambassador of the company you represent – and also your character certificate, personality profile and visiting card.

Jappreet Sethi

3 comments

Nov 05

How To Manage Stress And Regain Well-being

Without doubt, wellbeing is the ultimate objective of human existence. Paradoxically, we often wind up surrendering well-being in order to earn money, and then spend a major part of the earnings in attempts to regain it. These efforts are invariably fruitless – so why do we do it? More often than not, the only real beneficiary of the eternal rat race is the healthcare industry.

For most of us, work is the central pursuit in life. We strive to move up the career ladder, putting up massive efforts at the expense of other important factors that make life meaningful. We are not unaware of the toll this takes; the effort leads to physical and mental stress, while the subconscious knowledge that we engaged in a fool’s errand leads to psychological and spiritual stress.

Managing stress is essential for maintaining a sense of well-being. Stress occurs when we face situations for which we don’t have ready-made responses. The stress factor remains in check and can even be exhilarating as long as our minds entertain the hope that success is imminent. As soon as a feeling of impending defeat or loss sets in, stress becomes unpleasant, unhealthy and draining. This also leads to loss of motivation and destroys all feelings of well-being.

The Building Blocks Of Stress

Stress is multi-faced demon which we create to drive success, and which eventually gobbles us up. It consists of:

Threat perception
Feeling of negativity
The resultant psychological arousal

The drivers of stress are called stressors, and everything perceived as an impediment to what one desires to achieve is a stressor. The defense reaction causes a psychological alarm to go off, and makes us to muster all our energy to achieve the goal. If the situation continues for a prolonged time, the human mind prepares for long-term battle by remaining in a persistent state of active alertness. Eventually, both mind and body tire of this constant stage of red alert. Energy levels drop and there are increased chances of failure at the task level.

The Effects Of Stress

At the mental level, persistent and continuous stress leads to anxiety, insecurity and lack of concentration. At the physical level, it leads to changes in our hormonal secretion, in turn leading to cardiac problems and reduced immunity levels. In the societal realm, it leads to the steady erosion and breakdown of relationships. Burnout – emotional, physical and mental exhaustion mixed with reduced self-confidence and morale – sets in.

The Causes Of Stress

In an organization, some of the commonly observed caused of stress among employees are:

Very high or very low role demands
Lack of sufficient authority to discharge duties effectively
Favoritism and poorly-handled appraisal discussions
Lack of career prospects
Impending layoff or role redundancy

At a more individual level, existing personal circumstances, learned responses as well as inherent genetic dispositions cause us to react to stress differently. Major life transitions such as the death of family member, family breakdown, illness or loss of friends also play a role and make us sensitive to stressors that would have been ignored under other circumstances.

How to Manage Stress

Here are some of the most effective stress management precepts:

Be conscious of your thoughts and deeds, and of what your action do to you and others
Maintain a healthy and balanced diet
Draw up an integrated life plan – give equal weightage to work, family and society
Practice regular yoga and meditation to balance body and mind – there are very easy modules run by several agencies
Remember that it is not about winning at all costs but winning without any damage to you

Finally, remember that we cannot remove stress from our life. There are too many causative factors, and not all of them can be stopped. A reasonable degree of stress can actually be beneficial, because it makes us strive for more. However, it is essential to how much is enough for each one of us.

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Oct 29

How To Tackle Financial Stress

Financial stress can adversely affect a persons’ psychological state. This negative psychological state has a tendency to percolate down to the affected person’s workplace and – in fact – into all social interactions. Surveys have shown that financial stress is among the root causes of decreased performance at work and a steady decline in physical and mental wellbeing.

CAUSES OF FINANCIAL STRESS

The sources of financial stress are varied. In India, one of main causes is worry about the adequacy of retirement savings. Debt is yet another significant causative factor, as is worry about one’s ability to pay regular bills and housing loan installments. Most middle-class people in India are also under considerable stress related to their children’s education. Almost 90% of all survey subjects indicated that they experience stress over the rate of inflation and the resultant changes in interest rate, and the fact that their pay packets are not keeping pace with it.

An adjunct is stress created by joblessness or the fear of losing one’s job – which would create a financial deficit. A smaller segment of the Indian population experiences stress because they fear losing wealth that they have accumulated.

Lack of objectivity with the use of credit card can also cause stressful situations. Credit cards are a relatively new phenomenon in India, and many users tend to overspend with them. The financial woe this results in can be attributed to a lack of knowledge about credit card billing, hidden clauses and neglecting to read the fine print.

In the age of plastic money, people are tempted to overspend and misinterpret their spending power. A credit card purchase does not entail immediate payment and this can lead to a false sense of security. The result is invariably a lot of stress. The roots of most finance-related stress disorders are two-fold – lack of proper planning and a disconnection with the of one’s true financial position and future prospects.

DETRIMENTS OF FINANCIAL STRESS

Is financial stress itself a serious matter? If we consider that 80-90% of all ailments derive from stress, it certainly is. It has been proved that worrying excessively about one’s finances leads to heart disease, high blood pressure and in some cases alcohol and drug abuse. Depression related to haywire finances is almost a national mantra in India now. Financial stress also has peripheral bad effects, meaning that it causes absenteeism and reduces am employee’s productivity.

TACKING FINANCIAL STRESS

One of the baseline commandments in financial stress management is – get help. Finances are a serious matter and no single person can have perfect oversight. Moreover, we tend to become stuck in false belief systems about money. For instance, we may believe that a certain investment scheme is the best only because we have no knowledge of other schemes. Effective financial management calls for inside information into market dynamics and changing laws.

Complacency about deteriorating finances is a known ‘killer’. We tend to ignore the increasing seriousness of a situation, allowing it to build up until it is unmanageable. People dealing with large amounts of money – such as businesspersons – should consult a qualified financial adviser.

Even at the grassroots level of household finances, two heads are better than one. Managing household finances is teamwork, not a one-man show. Couples need to communicate with each other over the state of household finances. They must also set weekly, monthly and yearly parameters for what needs to be purchased or invested in. Doing this will considerably reduce the levels of finance-related stress in the family.

Regardless of how serious a financial situation is, it is never too late to get organized. Organization is they primary key for sorting out complicated finances. Effective organization calls for inputs from others and, when required, from experts.

BRINGING DOWN FINANCIAL STRESS

If one is already under stress from financial problems, planning is an extremely important factor. Often, one is tempted to throw good money after bad in hope of a quick-fix solution. When one is faced with financial stress, there are certain ground rules to follow:

Consult a professional financial adviser – A professional will know of ways and means that you are not aware of
Curtail spending until the crisis is resolved – This is no time for impulse buying as a stress-busting measure
If in debt, talk to your creditors and explain your situation frankly – Perfect transparency in such situation is a far better tool than evasion

OBJECTIVITY – THE ULTIMATE STRESS-BUSTER

We tend to run away from money-related problems rather than facing up to them. This is not even a temporary solution. The minute we accept such a situation squarely, we reduce stress because we are no longer trying to escape.

Getting proactive about tackling financial problems means one develops a ‘game plan’. This means positive action rather than negative inaction, which displaces the anxious feeling of helplessness. To develop a game plan, we involve the help and advice of others. In other words, we are no longer alone in the stress-inducing situation and are strengthened in a situation where we feel impotent and weak.

Jappreet Sethi

5 comments

Oct 15

How Your Social Media Profiling Influences Employers

A lot of new generation companies are actually looking at the social media profiles of prospective employees and using these as a filter along with resume. Companies are especially interested in the recommendations and endorsements that candidates have on social media accounts like LinkedIn.

A fair amount of recruitment today takes place through recruitment consultants, who are mostly staffed by Gen Y operatives who are extremely savvy about social media, and therefore use them extensively to filter candidate profiles.

Here are some best practices that I recommend to candidates applying for jobs as far as their portrayal of themselves on social media sites is concerned:

Don’t use questionable language on your blog, website or social media account page.
Don’t share links related to adult content.
Don’t post updates about your drinking binges and related escapades on your social media account. If you do, restrict the audience that can view such information.
Don’t make comments or start polls on sensitive topics related to race, creed, religion, gender, politics, etc. Your posts should not give the impression that you have such biases.
Don’t bitch about your company.
Don’t leak your company’s confidential information on social media sites.

Always ensure that you share intelligent, relevant, thought-provoking links which portray you in a favourable light.

Can Blogging Give You A Competitive Edge?

Personal branding experts are now beginning to recommend that candidates start a blog so they can showcase their expertise and knowledge to future employers. The benefits of blogs are that they:

Show initiative on the part of candidate
Demonstrate discipline and ability to multitask if the blog author follows a regular cycle of posting
Demonstrate openness to share knowledge
Demonstrate courage to take stand, which can be inferred from blog posts

All these are some of the key competencies that HR departments look for in senior management candidates, so a blog may help in demonstrating these as inherent traits – especially because one doesn’t get paid to do one’s own blog.

Blogs can be big advantage if you are at a senior level role. C-suite and top management head-hunters take candidates’ blogs very seriously, since they give recruiter an overview of their thought processes.

Tips For Women Candidates With Respect To Their Social Media Profiles:

Get good recommendations from your former managers and colleagues, but watch out for the statements such as “She is very pleasing person”, “My best friend” and “She was a great party organizer”. Instead, your recommendations should reflect your courage, drive and willingness to work hard.

Strictly avoid male-bashing and making comments which demonstrate a negative bias against a particular. Instead, post articles which trigger progressive thinking, talk beyond lifestyles and parties and express your opinions on important topics.

Jappreet Sethi

2 comments

Sep 17

Career Tips For Aspiring Women Achievers

We are finally seeing the entry of women in board-level positions at leading multinational companies. However, the numbers are not stacking up as anticipated – many businesses continue to have a less-than-balanced equation in terms of gender diversity in leadership roles.

Without doubt, it is still an uphill climb for women achievers who have set their sights at the top. After the deconstruction of the women’s liberation mind-set of the late ’70s, there seems to be a lack of both purpose and opportunities. Women realized that Mother Nature never meant to be men, and that their essential femininity is in fact their greatest strength. However, they also discovered that it takes more than strength to break into certain time-enabled silos.

The corporate world – especially in developing countries – still seems to be more geared more towards male domination at the top. Women who deem themselves of suitable caliber to breach these vaults need a clear strategy. Here are some tips for aspiring women achievers:

Chart Out A Clear Course Of Action

Take a dispassionate look at where you are today, and decide on where exactly you hope to land up within a certain time frame. Without a clear goal, all your efforts will be futile. Don’t set your goals without considering your existing or future family responsibilities. The pursuit of your career goals should not entail giving up on other important aspects of life.

Discuss Your Goals With Your Manager Or A Trusted HR Representative

Every company has different nuances wired into its employee growth equation, and you may not be privy to these. It is wise to discuss the way forward with someone who can advise you on your company’s policies and corporate culture. This will clarify your thinking and give you more objectivity.

Evaluate The Challenges

Ask yourself the following questions:

Who else is in line for the promotion you are seeking? What are their abilities and weaknesses?
Who are their connections and how did they build them?
How can you leverage someone else’s abilities to manage your limitations?
What can you do to have your candidature noticed even in the presence of these contenders?

Build A Personal Network Of Influential Men And Women Within The Company System

Construct and grow your network and then leverage your contacts tactfully. While many would view such a course of action as office politics, there is really no substitute for strategic thinking. Arrange to meet these people in formal and informal settings, and offer innovative ideas that will get you noticed. Also establish what their business objectives are, and how you may be helpful in fulfilling them.

Begin To Dress Like A Winner

Women have a much harder time dressing for success than men, and there are fine lines that must not be crossed. If your dress code is rather casual now, you need to gradually adopt a more formal look. The key concept is ‘gradual’, since a sudden change of dress code may proclaim your aspirations and goals too loudly. You do not want to invite antagonism from other aspirants to the higher echelons of company leadership.

Ensure That Your Achievements Are Noticed By The Right People At The RIght Time

This does not mean shouting them from the roof-tops – again, you do not want to antagonize the competition. You can do this more subtle and focused ways:

Copy your manager on a mail thanking a client for awarding you a contract
Schedule a meeting with your business head – ask him or her what would be the best way to build on a recent success
Ask about what achievement awards you may be entitled to, and make sure you send in your candidature
Keep a track of your achievements in your diary and use it for your mid-year or year-end review.

Do not allow yourself any feelings of entitlement. Nothing succeeds like success – it is your triumphs that will get you to the top, not the fact that you are a woman. Above all, beware of token positions that many companies create merely because of political correctness. These are dead-ends from where there is no upward trajectory at all.

Jappreet Sethi

5 comments

Sep 03

How To Give Yourself A Salary Hike

It’s not really certain which way the economy is heading right now, and saving money from your salary may currently figure high on your priority list. It should, because it looks like the global economy may go through more frequent and deeper recession cycles over the next decade.

This would mean that the regular yearly pay raises you may have been counting on could be out of window. There may be years of high payment and years of low or no bonuses. To add to the working joe’s woes, housing loan EMIs have risen astronomically in last 18 months. These are uncertain times for the middle-income group.

You’ve read enough about how companies can cut costs in such a scenario. As a salaried employee, you may even be feeling the pinch of some of those cost-cutting measures, yourself. What about you? If your monthly package just doesn’t seem to cut it even now and the increment scenario is uncertain, how do you manage? The best way is to give yourself a salary hike. This simply means becoming more savings-oriented and making your salary last longer.

You may be among those who have not already put certain important saving mechanisms in place. If so, it is high time that you did. This article will provide some practical advice on how to save money from your salary. Let’s start off with your debt burden and debt-inducing habits.

To begin with, stop using your credit card for anything but important online purchases – especially if it comes from the same bank that handles your salary account in. Banks managing companies’ salary accounts usually press a credit card on every employee as a direct incentive for reckless spending. They know that employees often tend to treat their salary accounts like Horns of Plenty that never really run dry.

Avoid personal loans. The high interest rates are not the only reason – the habit of taking personal loans to bail out of financial crises is an extremely self-sabotaging one. The personal loan system is simply not geared to work in your favour, so steer clear of it. If you need money before payday, ask for an advance or borrow it from friends or colleagues – as a last resort only. Ideally, you should not be in such a situation in the first place.

Now let’s talk about what you have in hand. First of all, don’t underestimate the power of small currency. You would be surprised at how much the stray cash in your wallet – and even the small change – can add up to at the end of the month. Try it out. Put every form of low-denomination currency in a designated container at the end of each day. Count it at the end of the month and see for yourself if it can pay at least one of those recurring monthly bills, such as the Internet or cable TV charges.

What about your monthly outgoings on entertainment? Are there cheaper options available? Most of the world’s stressed-out executives choose the quickest (read costliest) forms of personal and family entertainment. Do you really need to go bowling at that fancy new arcade? Do you really need to pay a premium for the privilege of booking those cinema tickets online? Can you live without ordering out for unhealthy fast food? Is spending enormous amounts on at the local amusement arcade the only way to keep your child occupied on weekends?

Invariably, the cheaper alternatives are not only more cost-effective but also more wholesome and rewarding. Included are all the things that the availability of instant entertainment keeps us away from – such as an evening walk or jog, a visit to friends or family and checking out a museum or art gallery. You may discover – like thousands of others the world over have – that making a decision to live cheaper also enriches your social life and improves your health.

Finally, let’s look at the essentials of daily living. As a mid-management person in your company, you may perceive it as being below your ‘standard’ to shop for your groceries and toiletries at Big Bazaar. Is there any sound logic to support this mind-set? Some of the richest people on earth attribute at least some of their good fortune to the fact that they did not lift their noses at bargains, discounts and bulk purchase savings.

Have the advertising world or a false sense of ‘upper middle-class’ dignity lured you into artificial lifestyle choices? Even if you are sometimes judged by the make of your shirt, nobody cares where you bought it. Moreover, where you buy your rice or razor blades from should certainly not be a ‘prestige point’. If you have fallen for the misconception that you are only as good as the places you shop in, correct the course now. The potential savings are very significant.

Jappreet Sethi

14 comments

Aug 20

Tips on Writing A Killer Résumé

I thought it appropriate to pen down some good résumé writing tips that show you how to write a résumé that gets results. The idea is to make your résumé more attractive to present or future employers. Many employees end up feeling that their current employers cannot offer them what they are looking for and proceed to scan the market. Having a dynamic résumé on the Internet is a definite advantage.

Here are some time-tested résumé writing tips. They will guide you in how to enumerate your personal details clearly, succinctly and in the correct order:

State your full name, phone number, temporary and permanent address, and e-mail address
State you educational qualifications, along with appropriate dates for each completed school, college and post-graduate course
State you actual work experience, which should include internships, extracurricular activities, and significant volunteer work
State your skills intelligently. Do not mention skills that have no bearing on the job for which you are applying and give relevant details for those that do
State any academic and professional recognitions and awards conferred on you

Long, rambling résumés are no longer in favour and the single-page format gets the best results with employers. The accent is on short, pithy accounts of a prospective employee’s career to date. The details can appear either in chronological or functional format. In the chronological format, you start with your earliest job and work up to the latest you have held. In the functional format, you group your qualifications and experience under appropriate headings.

Your résumé should not mention your personal hobbies, unless these have direct bearing on your chosen career path. Details of your extra-curricular activities should profile:

Any additional skills you have that increase your profile and on-the-job value
Any experience and qualifications you have gained in a job-relevant area that you excel in

Today’s employers give preference to candidates who have a wide range of professional experience. If you have any experience certificates, mention these in your résumé and include copies of these as separate attachments. If you have held temporary jobs that are in keeping with the job you are applying for, mention these briefly. Having ‘temped’ gives you an extra edge in interviews. It proves that you have had exposure to different work cultures.

Employers also value any evidence of higher social awareness in prospective employees. If you have had a chance to work for a charitable organization, mention the fact in your résumé. This value-adds to by it enormously. Mention details of all charitable work you have done. If you have feedback and commendation letters in this context, include those too as separate attachments.

Your résumé must not only have all the relevant information – it also needs to look attractive. It is often not possible to format online résumés for better appearance. However, in an actual face-to-face interview with a prospective employer, the candidate with a properly composed, well-presented résumé has a clear advantage.

Get a person experienced in page layouts to format your résumé if you lack the necessary skills. Then have it printed out on good quality paper, fold it neatly and enclose it in a right-sized envelope that bear you name and the position for which you are applying.

3 comments

Jul 18

Tips On How to Handle Workplace Conflicts In Style

There is nobody who has not had problems at work, and these problems invariably involve one’s supervisor, co-workers or even boss. Workplace conflicts are common – but the skills to handle them adroitly are not. Many employees react to workplace conflicts the way they would in any social conflict situation – from the gut. This is inappropriate, because the dynamics or workplace relationships – and therefore the consequences of workplace conflict – differ from normal social situations.

There are a number of different factors to consider while handling conflict on the job. Obviously, the first is whether the tussle is with your co-worker (a peer) or your supervisor/boss (seniors). If your problem involves a co-worker and you feel you have a strong case, attempting to solve the problem with the concerned person should be your first approach. If this proves unfruitful, taking it to your supervisor is appropriate. On the other hand, if your issue involves your supervisor, you need to go above their head and place the issue before another member of the company’s management.

A word of caution on reporting a co-worker to your supervisor. Most workplaces have their cliques that often involve someone placed higher up. In the final analysis, humans are social animals, and the herd instinct percolates into all strata of human relationships. Before lodging your complaint or seeking resolution, ensure that your supervisor is not part of the co-worker’s circle. If he or she is, it does not mean that you have to take your workplace conflict elsewhere – however, it does mean that you have to proceed with greater caution. Mentioning the problem in a pleasant, professional and diplomatic manner, eliminating all traces of spite, will usually work.

Your workplace conflict may involve someone higher up, such as your supervisor or manager. If so, lodging your complaint at the same level of the company’s pecking order is usually pointless. This is where the concept of hierarchy is an advantage to you. Schedule a meeting with the supervisor’s or manager’s immediate superior and plan your case in advance. Do not barge into the superior’s cabin without an appointment and launch into a tirade – you may get a hearing, but this approach is unprofessional and will get you nowhere.

The best way to schedule such a meeting is via email or telephone. Ensure that you do not lay out all the details of your workplace conflict at this point. Emails can be forwarded, and one-on-one telephone calls can be turned into conference calls with the touch of a button. The senior may decide to resolve the issue at once and rope the offending party into the discussion before you have had a chance to state your case. This could result in the workplace equivalent of a schoolyard argument, which would achieve nothing.

If you have any proof of unfair treatment (such as emails or memos) print these out before you make your case. You can also note down the time, date and a summary of events when you were harassed. If there is another co-worker who is willing to support your case in person, make sure that this person is available when you meet your senior. At all times before, during and after such an interaction, remain calm and professional.

A workplace conflict with the boss of the company can obviously only be addressed directly with the person concerned. Consider the attempted resolution of your issue with him or her the final test of your diplomacy skills and professionalism. It may be a good idea to scan the job market for other options before taking the problem up with your boss. If your issue involves unmanageable workload, an unreasonably low salary or lack of prospects and your boss refuses to meet you even half-way on it, you should be able to make a dignified exit.

Jappreet Sethi

3 comments

Jul 11

How To Get Yourself Noticed At Work

Have your talent, potential and resourcefulness on the job gone unnoticed while those of other have been rewarded? Have others of equal experience risen on the corporate ladder much faster than you? You have probably not mastered the fine art of increasing your visibility at the workplace. Adeptness at getting noticed at work in a positive way is a major professional resource.

Increasing Visibility Vs. Self-Promotion

This does not mean that you should get busy advertising yourself, which would only make you unpopular. That said, you still need to become more prominent – albeit diplomatically – with the authorities. You do this by indicating that you are ready to contribute to the business in more responsible ways.

Obviously, a great deal of tact is involved in this. The last thing you want is to find yourself labelled as over-ambitious. Getting noticed at work begins with learning more about:

The business
The organization’s objectives
How the organization functions administratively

After familiarizing yourself with these aspects, your credibility quotient when approaching the managerial echelons increased multifold.

Experience Speaks Loudest

However, just knowing how a business works is often not enough – you need hands-on experience, too. Lack of this will show up, especially if an opportunity is given to you to prove yourself on the job. However, it may not be the best idea to experiment with untested management theories in a ‘live’ work situation.

The best way to gain experience is by:

Volunteering for charity work
Participating in a family business
Involvement in local charity or social/environmental improvement work.

Such work gives you a chance to acquire managerial and general people-related skills under non-threatening circumstances.

Effective Communication Skills

The degree of your communication skills has a direct bearing on the image and potential you project. Any business will value the presence of an employee who has good communication skills. These are most evident in one-on-one interactions and written communiqués (such as emails or even memos). The art of effective communication does not depend on getting noticed with the use of impressive words. Rather, it is reflected in your ability to get a point across as concisely, politely and clearly as possible.

Trying to get noticed at work by razzle-dazzling others with impressive terminology doesn’t work. That, and the use of complicated sentences, will only mark you as a snob. That’s not what you need to get noticed at work for.

Improved communication skills are useful while outlining your career objectives to your superiors, too. If you feel that your verbal technique needs working on, find some useful reference material to study and also observe how effective communicators around you handle themselves.

Creative Input – A Sure Attention Grabber

A tactical suggestion at the right time and under the right circumstances can work wonders. To get noticed at work, such a suggestion should not be trite or superficial. It should have a genuine bearing on a situation. If your input is valid in the context of overall business goals, you will get noticed.

A suggestion should not be centered only what you could do to resolve a given situation. A potential manager, team leader or supervisor can never be a one-man/woman show. The ideal suggestion involves team work.

Teamwork And The ‘Common Touch’

Have you taken steps to get noticed as potential managerial material? Well, now your interactions with colleagues will be evaluated by your superiors. You will be judged on:

Your willingness to occasionally get your hands dirty
You ability to take suggestions positively
Your resourcefulness in motivating people in the workforce

These are the traits that you get noticed at work for. The canvas on which you paint your new job profile is the shop-floor, not the director’s cabin.

Keeping Track Of The Highlights

Finally, keep a log of your work – especially the kind performed over and above the call of duty. This is both for your own reference as well as a record on which to make a pitch for promotion. You the right of getting noticed at work by your superiors for your noteworthy achievements. However, make sure that this is done discreetly. Most managers would be more than willing to give you a monthly appointment to review your performance. This is the best time to outline your professional goals, too.

Your objective in getting noticed for possible managerial post in an organization also matters. If the idea is plain one-upmanship, it will show up as a black mark on your record. The idea should always be to be an asset to the company and be justly rewarded for being a valuable resource.

Jappreet Sethi

17 comments

Jul 04

Tips To Build Your Resume

Do you feel that your present job is going nowhere? Do you yearn to spread your wings and soar higher in your career? The way to do it is to build your resume and make it more attractive to present or future employers.

The emphasis should be on gaining new experience. You can do this by concentrating on either value-adding skills that increase your profile and market value or gaining experience and qualifications in an area that you are interested in and feel you can excel in.

Many employees now use their spare time to try their hand at something apart from their daily job. As mentioned above, it may well be something that they have always longed to do under different circumstances. The experience and certification that they gain by branching out like this boosts their resume considerably.

Employers value in a wide range of professional experience in their employees. Experience certificates speak very loudly – the more the better. However, most of us aren’t lucky enough to get wide market exposure in out fulltime jobs. Often, it’s just doing the same thing over and over again till one makes a change.

The Temporary Job Option

If you want to build your resume, you could try your hand some temporary jobs. ‘Temping’ opens you up to many different work cultures and gives you a fresh perspective of the job market. Get rid of the misguided notion that ‘temping’ is for slackers and lazy unemployables. For you, it can be the road to an enhanced career. It can provide you with a decisive edge as far as experience, exposure and knowledge of the marked are concerned.

If you do decide to build your resume in this manner, you obviously need to find something appropriate. You might benefit from using your own contacts. Don’t underestimate the power of word-of-mouth. You can start your search for resume-building temporary work by networking with previous colleagues, family members and friends. Chances are fairly good that something suitable will turn up, either through them or their own contacts.

If you have no contacts of your own, surf the many job sites available on the internet till you find what suits you best. Additionally, scan the paper’s classifieds regularly.

Home-based Work

You can do resume-boosting work from home, too. What you will need are enough spare time after your job and appropriate computer skills. These are:

Reasonable proficiency with Microsoft Word
Reasonable typing skills
More-than-average internet skills
Reasonable diction (vocabulary)

This is the age of the Internet, and the possibilities for building your resume on your own time are virtually limitless. While computer-based jobs are not the only kind available, they certainly pay the best. Other possibilities like writing short stories or data entry may also pay, but they certainly do not help to build your resume.

Doing Social/Charity Work

Today’s managements respect evidence of social awareness and concern in their employees. In other words, if you have a good opportunity to work for a charitable organization, do it. It will look great on your resume. You will greatly increase your resume’s value by adding experience and contribution certificates of this kind. Make sure that you enumerate the details of all work you have done for such organizations, and include feedback and commendation letters if possible.

Championing Your Own Cause

The idea of building your resume is to make sure that you get mileage out of it. For this, you will have to bring your value-added resume to the attention of the management. You have every right to ask for a periodic evaluation with your superiors. These would be the occasions when you highlight your new experience and ask for possible upgrades in your job profile.

If you feel that your present company cannot offer you what you are looking for, go ahead and scan the market. Put your enhanced resume on the Internet and ask around for new opportunities. This does not mean that you should give any indication of this to your present employer. But some jobs are genuinely the dead-end kind, and there is really not much point in building your resume if you do not get the desired rewards from yours.

Jappreet Sethi

4 comments

Jun 27

How to Get Promoted Without Asking

It is time to rise in the ranks in your company, and you are convinced that you deserve a promotion. You could always ask for one, but how would such a request be received by the Powers That Be? Asking for a promotion may not be the best course to take. A wiser and far more effective plan to get a promotion is to get yourself noticed at work for the right reasons. A lot of employees these days have understood this fact and are acting on it.

Mentioned below are some tips that have worked for many employees looking for a promotion. Of course, there are no guarantees – a lot depends on your company, its work culture and the person you report to, as well. In any case, you have nothing to lose by trying these tips out.

One of the best ways to stand our positively from the rest of the crowd – and therefore increase your chances of getting a promotion – is by helping your colleagues. Take time out each week to help someone facing problems. This is a sure-fire way of getting yourself noticed, because very few employees do it. Offer guidance on specific tasks and help them to organize their work better. Going over and beyond the call of duty in such a way will soon get you noticed by someone in management.

Yet another plan of action is to be present at all optional meetings, including online video meetings and business conference calls. Participating in these events – even if you do not always contribute in any significant manner – will get you noticed. Moreover, the information you pick up during such meetings makes you privy to knowledge about the company you work for that other employees are either unaware of or not concerned about.

Similarly, create more recall value for yourself by attending all extra-curricular events that your company organizes. Never miss an offsite get-together or an inter-departmental sporting event.

Needless to say, offering to work as much as possible without sacrificing your current social and family life entirely is a time-tested and proven route to a promotion. Unless you are working for a completely mercenary and exploitative outfit, your consistent presence in the office after official working hours is bound to get you noticed favorably.

Finally, look for opportunities to give suggestions to your department head on how work processes could be improved upon. Make sure that you do not criticize the existing regimen, and steer clear of badmouthing under-performing co-workers. Also, ensure that you make such suggestions in complete confidence. Any ideas that you can pass on to your superior that will help him or her do a better job will get you noticed.

Jappreet Sethi

8 comments

Jun 20

Asked to Relocate? What To Ask Your Employer

Have you been asked by your employer to relocate? If so, you are in a situation which an increasing number of employees are finding themselves in today. There can be any number of reasons why you may have been asked to relocate. For instance, with many companies finding it difficult to manage financially in areas with high real estate costs, a number of them are choosing to relocate to areas from where it is cheaper to operate. If you have been asked to relocate for such or any other reasons, there are certain pointed questions that you should ask your employer before officially agreeing to the move.

Obviously, one of the primary concerns that you will want to address with your employer if you have been asked to relocate will be with regards to your salary. In cases where a company chooses to relocate to an area where operational costs are lower, lower pay for employees may also be on the agenda. It is therefore important that you determine what your pay will be after relocation. As a current employee, you shouldn’t be asked to take a reduction in pay – but there is always a chance that you may be.

Another area of concern in such a situation would pertain to your existing designation. Are you working in management or do you hold a similarly high position? If so, find out if your position will stay the same, or perhaps increase. Certainly, relocating at the behest of your employer shouldn’t mean that you receive a reduction in status or a reduction in salary – but, as already observed, there are no guarantees. In other words, it is essential that you find out as much as you can about your new position before you officially decide to transplant your and your family’s life and household to another city .

Don’t neglect to find out all you can about the duties you will be expected to fulfil after relocating. Since companies often relocate to save money, this may also involve eliminating positions and having the remaining employees assume a larger workload. If you would be expected to perform more duties, you may want to negotiate yourself a higher salary. Don’t forget – these are all questions that you should ask before you make the decision to relocate for your job or not.

Yet another query to place before your employer concerns relocation expenses. You should most definitely establish whether your employer will cover the cost of relocating for you or your family. The financial assistance, if any, may not cover every expense that you are likely to incur, but it may be enough to help cover your travel expenses or the costs of hiring a moving company. Most employers will notify you upfront if they plan on assisting you with the cost of relocating. If yours doesn’t, you definitely need to ask about it.

Finally, take out the time to learn as much about your new location as possible. You will want to focus on points such as the current real estate market, crime rate, availability of civic and social infrastructure such as shopping outlets, medical care, public transport, etc. If you have children, you will want to examine the local school districts, and it would be prudent to scope out the current job outlook for your spouse’s line of work in the new city.

Jappreet Sethi

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