Author: Marcia Zidle

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A Panel Interview: Create a Great Impression

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You’ve wanted this position for quite a while and you’ve now been invited to interview for the role of your dreams. There’s just one catch you’re not going to be facing one interviewer, you’ll be facing four all at the same time!

A coaching client contacted me recently asking for help. He just found out he was one of three candidates vying for a position that he really wanted. And a panel would be interviewing each one. He’s confident doing one-on-one interviews but was concerned about how he should handle a panel.

If visions of being put in front of a firing squad leap into your mind, you’re not alone. Panel interviews with three, four, even seven people are becoming the norm. This process allows those who will be directly involved with the new hire to give and get input. It also cuts down the cost and time associated with several rounds of traditional interviews.

So what I told my client is that a panel interview is really just an expanded version of the one-on-one interview. So keep in mind the success factors for traditional interviews – be prepared, show enthusiasm, connect your experience to the job qualifications, answer questions clearly and precisely, etc.

However, there are some differences. You will be facing a variety of different people, all of whom have different interests and different ways of evaluating you. Therefore,

1. Find out if possible who (name and position) will be part of the panel.
Will it be your boss and other managers? What about peers – people or the team you’ll be working with? Will HR also be represented? Then do research and each person so you can connect better with them.

2. Identify the leader and pay attention to him or her.
The person who brings you to the room or first greets you in the room may not be the leader. The leader is typically the one who explains the process and gets the interview underway. Give this person extra deference when answering the questions.

3. Build rapport with each person.
If comfortable, shake every one’s hand when you are introduced or at least smile and say something like “How do you do, I’m glad to meet you.” Listen carefully when you are introduced so you can use people’s names when you answer their questions. Continue to make eye contact with each one during the entire interview.

4. Don’t focus just on one person.
When a specific panel member asks a question, address your answer to him or her first and then the others. Realize each interviewer has his or her own issues they want addressed but you need to continually ‘work” the group.

5. Link questions together.
If Joe asks a question that touches on what Ann asked earlier, acknowledge how the questions, and your answers, are interrelated. The more you can address the needs of all panel members the better!

Career Success Tip:

A panel interview is an opportunity to impress many different people in the organization. It can be a great advantage if you get the job. You’ll have a head start in building relationships within the organization that can propel your career. So seize the opportunity with confidence and make the most of it.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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10 Things To Do To Have Engaged, Energized Employees

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Do you manage by walking around? What do you see? People excited about their job or people just going through the motions?

Here are 10 ways, that do not cost much if anything, to turn “it’s just a job” employees into engaged, energized employees.

1. Spend time out in the field. Ask your employees how you can help make their jobs easier. Work alongside them and even let them teach you what they do. Southwest Airlines has a mandate that every manager must spend 1/3 of his or her time in direct contact with employees and customers to create a stronger feeling of teamwork.

2. Hold a voluntary good news hour. Set aside time once a week so that .everyone can share good things that have happened in their lives and work during the last week

3. Celebrate everything you can. For example, meeting of short term goals, the end of the budget process, winning grants or new customers, extraordinary work, safety successes.

4. Surprise with spontaneous treats. Rent an ice cream cart or a popcorn machine. Take coffee and donuts to each person’s work station. How about a package of Lifesavers™ during a stressful time?

5. Praise frequently. A pat on the back, a short note of thanks, or a voice mail message from a manager can refill employees’ emotional bank accounts for weeks!

6. Hold informal “grapevine sessions” to control the flow of the rumor mill. Managers must be prepared to listen and to be completely truthful and open. Even when they can’t share specific information, they can honestly explain why and when it will be available.

7. Let people know what they do is important. Help your workers focus not on only a job description but also on how they fit into the big picture. That new sense of purpose will boost their self-esteem and motivation.

8. Don’t let respect slip under the radar screen. If you treat your employees with respect you will earn their respect. For example, if you pay attention to and take care of your front-line people, they will in turn pay attention to and take care of the customer. Start with daily greetings. Remember their birthdays or other important dates. Take an interest in their interests. Say thank you for a job well done.

9. Take them serious. There’s incredible brainpower all around you, so why not put it to work? You hired your employees because you thought they could make a valuable contribution. Ask for their suggestions to problems. Include them in decisions that affect their work. Give them enough authority that goes with their responsibility.

10. Work for your people. Listen and act quickly on their questions. Clear the way so they can do their jobs well. Once people see their leader as acting for them, or on their behalf, they develop a personal loyalty that energizes their performance.

Supervision Success Tip:

If someone asked your staff or frontline workers a few general questions about the company or your department, would they describe it in terms like ‘they’ and ‘them,’ or in terms like ‘we’ or ‘us’? What can you do, in your position, to move your people to feel engaged and part of your team? Also see Motivate Your Best People and The Enthusiastic Employee.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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Smart Hiring: Are You Doing It Right?

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Does your hiring process consist of proven practices or just a hodgepodge of activities that get into gear when someone says, “I need more people” or “Sally has left and we need someone to take her place NOW?”

Smart hiring is more than posting requisitions, screening, interviewing and checking references. It is a series of specific procedures that can bring in top candidates or create poor hires. Here are six ways to enhance the entire recruitment process.

1. Select the right sourcing method.
While the typical sourcing channels include in-house recruiters, employee referral programs, executive search firms, advertising, temporary staffing agencies, campus recruiting and, of course, the internet, not all will be appropriate for filling every position. Are you trying to hire dozens of hourly wage jobs or a senior executive? Each will require different hiring methods. One size does not fit all.

2. Map, flow-chart or diagram what you do.
First uncover delays and glitches that waste time, interfere with getting the job done right the first time and drive good job seekers away. Then identify areas that can be improved by eliminating, simplifying or combining tasks or that can be streamlined electronically for efficiency.

3. Develop realistic job profiles.
Studies have shown that 25 percent of companies don’t take the crucial step of defining what they’re looking for before they begin the hiring process. If competencies (skills, motivations, and behaviors) are not first identified, you will waste precious interview time asking the wrong questions. Because jobs change over time, review the profiles periodically to verify they are still valid.

4. Create partnerships between human resources and hiring managers.
Remember that both are on the same team. Both are trying to attract and select the best people. Truly understanding the job to be filled requires good communication and cooperation. Jointly develop the job requirements, decide on the screening factors, plan the interviews, assign follow-up responsibilities, and establish selection criteria to make quality decisions.

5. Develop good metrics to make better use of your resources.
Are you getting the right people from your sourcing methods? Are you spending your recruitment budget wisely? To find out you need to evaluate the different sources based on the suitability of the candidates each source provides. Suitability can be measured by the percent of total applicants found to be qualified, the number of qualified applicants relative to the number of available positions, or the turnover rate of new hires overall.

6. Find out what’s working and what’s not.
Use ‘mystery candidates’ to experience your entire recruitment process and provide feedback. Do a survey of all new hires during orientation and ask them for their moments of impression. Then, reinforce the positive factors and eliminate the negative ones. Finally, use your exit interviews to identify additional improvement areas.

Management Success Tip:

The effectiveness of the recruitment process impacts the effectiveness of the organization. A new hire that does not fit the position will be difficult to develop, will perform poorly and more likely leave resulting in need to repeat the process. Only when recruitment is approached as a specific process with definable steps and measurable results can it be managed to ensure the hiring of quality people. Also see The Top 5 Hiring Mistakes and Smart Hiring: Selecting Top Talent.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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Career Success Part 3: Make The Right Things Happen!

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People react very differently to the waves of change that suddenly flood the work and marketplace.

Some, who feel confused or unsettled struggle to keep their heads above water gasping for air. By contrasts, others, who may not even like or agree with the changes, nevertheless accept them, get on with their lives and swim forcefully to their new destination. The following three tactics will help you mobilize your resources to take charge of your career.

1. Fuel the Fire In Your Heart.
Live your life and career with intention. The key to sustained peak performance is discovering who you are, what you want in life, and then confidently pursue it. Remember, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know that you’ve arrived?

Start by develop a career line that shows your career highs and lows from your first job to the present. What kinds of activities were you involved in during your highs – during your lows? Continue this getting to know yourself process by locating your inner energy source. What really gets the juices flowing for you? Is it challenge? Helping other? Being creative? Having authority? Making an impact? Whatever motivates you, write it on a card and look at it every morning.

2. Forget Being the Lone Ranger
Are you familiar with the saying: “It’s not what you know, .but who you know.” Well in today’s changing work world, the new saying is: “It’s not only what you know, it’s not only who you know, but, as important, it’s who knows you and your work.”

First thing to do is to inventory your network. List all the key people in your career world. Are your contacts mostly within your area? r are there linkages into different departments, divisions, subsidiaries? What about outside your company? What kinds of relationships do you have? Hi and good by? Or Hi! What have you been doing? Develop relationships with a whole array of people. It’s your ticket to career advancement and success.

3. Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something.
Recognize a successful career in not a spectator sport. Opportunities do not just get placed on your desk. Organizations will no longer provide you with clearly defined career paths. Don’t be an absentee landlord and neglect your personal career management. Take charge of your career…., if you don’t … no one else will.

Focus on career contingency planning. Do you have a Plan A, a Plan B, and even a Plan C? What conditions could possibly change in your job; your company; or your industry? Do you have a clear idea where you could jump if unexpected roadblocks arise? Where else can you apply your skills and showcase your talents? A successful career is not fixed in stone, but is fluid and subject to change.

Career Success Tip:

Remember, the name of the game is action. Make sure your career goals are not stranded on a island called: “Someday I’ll………..” If you want something, don’t just think or talk about it. Figure out a way to make it happen. Set specific goals. Develop action plans. Have realistic timetables. Find the resources you need. See Career Success Part 1: Don’t let You Guard Down and Part 2: Get Ahead of the Crowd.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Career Success Part 2: Get Ahead of the Crowd

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The person who is going to be successful is not going to succeed just because of good work. That is a given. It is expected.

You get ahead of and stay ahead of the crowd by managing your competitive advantage. Here are three ways to do it.

1. Think of Your Career As A Business.
The business of career management is that—an independent business that you manage—even if you work for someone else. In this world of downsizing, restructuring, and mergers, you, not the company, must be in the driver’s seat of your career. Always think of yourself as self-employed – as a career entrepreneur.

Ask yourself these tough but important questions: What business am I really in? What is my product line? What is the target market for my products? For example, if I am an accountant then, what is it that I really do that people will pay for? Do I know my current worth in the marketplace? It doesn’t matter what your title is. What matters is, if what you do has value and is needed by someone or some company.

2. Have Skills, Will Travel.
What do you bring to the employment table? You carry with you, wherever you go, a large suitcase or portfolio that holds all of your skills, experiences, and accomplishments. What’s in your portfolio? Is it heavy with many skills or light with only a few? Do you know if it would be valued in lots of different places or just a limited number?

To be competitive, you need to periodically audit your portfolio. How do you compare with your peers in terms of education, experience, training, career progression? Are you new and improved? Or, are you just the same person you were three, five, ten years ago? Do you have the right mix of skills, knowledge and experiences to position yourself for the future? Or, do you need to repackage yourself in some way? Avoid becoming a professional dinosaur.

3. Play the New Career Game
What will keep you in the game as the workplace continues to change? Initiative, visibility, and flexibility are the three keys for success in the new career game. You can’t afford to sit behind your desk, buried in your everyday work, and hope for the best. Go beyond your job description and direct your energy to the top priorities of your boss, your department, your team. Make yourself indispensable.

Then promote yourself by the outcomes or results of what you’re doing. You can start making a name for yourself by being involved in successful assignments that allow you to be visible to a wide range of people who could have an impact on your career. These assignments could include for example: Building a new team from scratch; or overseeing the introduction of new technology; or taking on projects that require liaison or communications between departments, functional areas and vendors.

Carer Success Tip:

The great physicist Albert Einstein said: “You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” Can you play better than anyone else? Part 3: Make The Right Things Happen.

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Stop Micro Managing: Start Smart Managing

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If I was a fly on the wall what would I hear your employees say? Would it something like this? “They won’t allow me to make even the simplest decisions.” “The red tape here makes it very difficult to do my job.” “Management has to sign off on everything; they don’t trust me.”

A big time waster for managers is micro-managing – paying extreme attention to small details and not giving people the authority to do their job.

Why does it happen?

If it is such a time waster, why do so many managers get hooked into micro-managing? Here are some reasons.

  • Top down mirroring. The CEO or President micro-manages his or her direct staff. The staff then unconsciously adopts the same management style with their direct reports. The practice spreads, or ‘mirrors’ itself, and becomes part of the culture.
  • Fear. In today’s difficult economy, managers live in perpetual fear that their department better produce or else. This fear drives them to micro-manage, rather than trust their employees to make the appropriate decisions.
  • A wrong belief. Many managers think success is based on amassing as much power as possible. They therefore do not allow their employees to make decisions by themselves because that would be giving up their own power. However, the more management allows employees to make decisions, the more powerful the entire organization will be.

What Can be Done?

Here are four strategies to influence managers to focus their time, energy and resources on the important tasks of managing – getting work down by and through others.

  1. Start at the top. Hire an executive coach to help the CEO learn to trust and delegate to subordinates. Managers will then likely follow suit with their own direct reports.
  2. Ask employees. Use focus groups and individual interviews to learn from employees what decision-making authority they feel they need to do their jobs well. Then communicate this information to their supervisors.
  3. Put yourself in their shoes. It is very easy for managers to lose perspective about what decisions their employees really need to make by themselves. Managers should ask themselves, what decisions would I need to make if I were doing that job?
  4. Train managers. Delegating and trusting employees are all skills that can be taught. During the training, those few managers that ARE doing a good job of delegating should be asked to share their best practices and successes with others.

Supervision Success Tip:

Many managers often know in their heart of hearts that they are micro managing. Yet they find it difficult to change old habits. Great managers are consummate learners and are willing to take risks and try new approaches.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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Winning Teams Aren’t Created By Accident

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Rather, the team or project leader functions like a coach who recognizes special talents in people and, at the same time, gets them to work together toward a common goal. The following steps will help you select a cohesive team and set it in the right direction.

1. Evaluate team candidates.
You may be called upon to assemble a team of players from different or competing organizations to take on a special assignment. Or, you have to pick from your own staff those who should work together on a particular project. Too often, leaders merely assess a project’s demands and select people on technical qualifications. But that approach can fail if the personalities and specific talents don’t mesh. Teams succeed when leaders give as much thought to team relationships as to the tasks that need to be performed.

Team members should complement each other’s talents. For example, one worker may find it easy to come up with idea, but may find it difficult to analyze problems. Another worker may have analytical skills but may not be creative. These two would play to each other’s strengths. Also recognize that some people can take a project and run it with little guidance. Others need every detail spelled out. Make sure you have a mixture of necessary skill sets to get the job done.

2. Get the team off to a good start.
To help members quickly move from the ‘me’ to the ‘we’ stage of effective teamwork, clarify the following:

  • The big picture and goals. Explain the team’s mission or purpose and how it fits in with the company’s or department’s goals. Therefore members will become more motivated and empowered to get involved.
  • The talent on the team. Discuss the value of each member – the skills and expertise they bring to the team. You may also want to let each person tell about their experiences. This starts to build trust and teamwork.
  • The “who does what when.” When a team is formed, people often are confused about their particular roles and responsibilities. Get the team immediately involved in establishing specific short-term objectives as well as determining the steps required to accomplish these objectives.

3. Maintain involvement and productivity.
At this stage, members begin to understand what roles they need to play in order to reach the team’s objectives. The next step is to determine a set of ground rules of how they will operate together. Team members need to define effective team behaviors. For example, they need to discuss how they will handle conflict, how they will make decisions, how they will address the normal challenges of people working together.

4. Look out for these danger signs.
You have a problem if members: Don’t take responsibility for their actions; break into subgroups instead of sharing work; expect others to solve their problems; miss deadlines and lose interest in their work. If problems arise among team members, act quickly.

Have regular scheduled “let’s see how we’re doing” meetings to address issues, conflicts and uncertainties. Also provide on-going skills training in group problem-solving, decision making and conflict resolution.

Management Success Tip:

Don’t expect teams to develop in the dark or by accident. Create an environment for teamwork. Make sure you have provided the light that will spark member’s involvement, participation, and productivity.Remember to have fun together. that allows people to work better together.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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Career Success Part 1: Don’t Let Your Guard Down

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Do you want to know how to jump-start or advance your professional career? There are three keys. Here’s the first one: Monitor your changing environment so you won’t be caught off guard.

Visualize your career environment as one huge jigsaw puzzle. It consists of your present job, your company, your industry, your profession, your regional, national and world economy. You may only be aware of certain pieces of the gigantic puzzle. However, those other pieces are also extremely important. They can stop you in your career success tracks or enable you to take advantage of new career opportunities. The following three tactics will help you monitor your changing environment to prevent you from be caught with your pants down.

1. Act As an Information Magnet
Don’t be a modern-day Rip Van Winkle. Don’t wake up to a world you no longer understand and feel comfortable in. Are you so tied up in everyday life that you fail to see the shifts in your workplace and in the marketplace?

As pace of change accelerates, careers will be affected by what’s happening inside and outside your workplace. Don’t find yourself in an information vacuum. Stay in tune with the changing workplace. Realize that information is power and it is absolutely necessary for career survival.

2. Scan the Changing Landscape
Imagine your career as steering a ship down an unexplored river. To ensure safe passage, you must be attentive to ever-evolving conditions. These are the powerful trends occurring in society, business, and technology that will be impacting your professional life and career. So get out of your narrow tunnel and start seeing the big picture. What are you seeing, hearing or reading? What’s happening in your company, or the marketplace or the political and legislative arenas?

Then start thinking strategically. Ask yourself: What are the immediate and the long range influence of these trends? How can this information directly or indirectly affect me, my industry or my profession? How are changes that I see today likely affect my job security tomorrow? What can I start doing today to prepare for the next year, or three years, or five years?

3. Prospect for Opportunities
For example, the flattening of organizations is really a two-edged sword. It can reduce the chance for promotion, but it also can create opportunities for you to take on responsibilities that you may not have been able to when positions were more narrowly defined. In times of rapid change, there are always critical things that may fall through the crack. So start looking for some problem areas. Do you have a way to fix it? Part 2 is Get Ahead of the Crowd.

Carer Success Tip:

When asked, “How come you are always where the puck is?” Wayne Gretsky, the well known hockey player, answered: “I’m not where the puck is, but where the puck is going to be.”

Where is the puck going to be for you? Where are the potential growth areas are in your field, in your industry, in your company?

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?

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Winning Teams On the Football Field and the Workplace

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Teams, teams, teams. Whether you love-em or loathe-em, you’ll have to learn to live, not only with them, but within them. You leadership will depend on it.

Here are five strategies for building and nurturing a winning team on the football field and in the workplace.

1. Manage by adultery.
It’s a term coined by Chaparrel Steel to describe its management philosophy of treating workers like adults instead of children. People are hired, not to do mindless jobs, but to put their brains to work. Management’s job is to give the team or work group a mission, see that they get the necessary resources and provide feedback and encouragement. Then turn them loose to be creative problem solvers.

2. Hire people who care.
When evaluating prospective employees, a major airline brings all job candidates together in a room and asks each person to make a presentation. Everybody thinks that the company officials are evaluating the person making the presentation. But in reality, the company is evaluating the candidates in the audience to see who are attentive and supportive as others are presenting. It is a strong signal that these people have the ability to care about others and are potential candidates to hire.

3. Make sure there is a scoreboard.
One critical difference between a group and a team is that a team knows what constitutes a win. Players in sports know instantly where their team stands and whether they are winning or losing. This information then affects how they are going to play the rest of the game. But in most businesses, employees may work for weeks and months and not know if they are winning, losing, or just hanging in there. Like sports teams, business teams should also have scoreboards. Then team members would have some idea how close they are to a win and what they need to do to make it happen.

4. Don’t take on your team’s monkeys or problems.
If the leader keeps running in and lifting the weights for his team, they are never going to build any of their own muscle. The trap in becoming a “hero leader” is that every time you pull a rabbit out of a hat, you generate more dependency from your team. Important: Astute leaders welcome their employees to discuss problems and solutions, but never let them leave their problems with the leader.

5. Set up your team to win, not lose.
If your team is faced with multiple tasks or problems, don’t always tackle the worst ones first. Conventional wisdom says prioritize your tasks and then begin tackling your most important problems, solve them and then move on to smaller ones. This approach ignores the fact that the biggest problem is usually the hardest to tackle. Therefore, if not prepared mentally, team members are more likely to fail, become demoralized and give up. This is not permission for all of us procrastinators to put aside our tough assignment. Rather, it allows us to gain the confidence to first experience success on a smaller level before going for “the big one.”

Management Success Tip:

Paul “Bear” Bryant, the legendary football coach at the University of Alabama, said winning team members need to know the following: “Tell me what you expect of me -Give me an opportunity to perform- Let me know how I’m doing -Give me guidance where I need it -Reward me according to my contributions.”

I couldn’t have said it better than Bear Bryant. Do you have winning teams?

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

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What’s Your Career Success IQ?

A serious young man thinking about his career goals

There are three kinds of people! Those who make it happen; Those who let it happen; Those who are surprised by what’s happened! How well are you making it happen in your career?

To make it happen starts with taking a hard look at how well you are managing your career in today’s very changing workplace.

Here’s a Quick Quiz From the Career Success System.
How many of these statements can you honestly answer YES to?

About You:

1. I know what is really important to me and I am living and doing it.
2. I really like the work I do and I’m not hanging on marking time.
3. My skills are up-to-date and valued in the marketplace.

About Your Company:

4. I am a key player. I know what it takes to succeed here.
5. I have good relationships with my boss, peers and others here.
6. I am aware of how my company, division or business unit is doing.

About Your Future:

7. I am developing a personal brand to distinguish me from others.
8. I can use my skills and experience in other areas of the company.
9. I am visible to potential employers and others who can advance my career.
10. I know what it will take to get from where I’m now to where I want to be.

Scoring:
I was able to answer YES to ____ questions:

8-10: Take a bow.
You are doing well in managing your career. But don’t rest on your laurels. Continue to keep your eyes and ears open for changes that can impact your success. Use this e-book stay on the ball.
4-7: Push forward.
You doing OK but don’t wait for a career crisis to take action. Pick two or three questions you were not able to answer. Use this e-book to sharpen your career management skills.
0-3: Don’t lose hope.
You can manage your career. Use this e-book to learn all you can about winning the career game.

Career Success Tip:

Invest in your career. Most people forget they really have two jobs. The first is to do what you get paid for and to do it well. The second is to do what’s required to ensure your career is where you want it to go and not leave it to someone else. Are you ready to take charge, take action, take control of your career? Next post: Career Success Part 1: Don’t Let Your Guard Down

Do you want to develop Career Smarts?