When times are uncertain and chaotic like they are today, our tendency is to become tentative and even fearful of risk.  If you were looking for a new job yesterday, today you might be thinking about staying put in your "this-job-is-killing-me" current job so that you can feel secure.  It's good to be prudent in making a career change, but it might also be causing you to miss out on a great opportunity.

Other people across the country are likely having the same reaction you are.  So, if you are talented and willing to keep your eyes open right now for new opportunities, your personal stock may be rising.  There are still great companies out there who are still needing to find great people.  While your competition for these jobs is "playing it safe" in their current dead end job, you should be out there playing the field.  Always remember, when you are job searching, nothing has changed until another company makes you an offer you accept.  So, there's no risk to being out there doing some interviews.  You can always say no. 

So, as fear creeps in and you begin to think about putting off your job search.  Fight that urge off and keep pressing on.  It's becoming a job seekers market.  Take advantage. 

-Jason

Our country is in a recession.  That's what everyone is saying.  And with my limited economic expertise, I am in no position to argue.  Do you know how it's impacting you?

There's no question that some people are being hit pretty hard as they lose their homes due to this mortgage fiasco.  But, I think that we need to be cautious.  As an HR leader, there's temptation to over react when times like these are upon us.  Last week, I participated as a panel member of HR leaders for a podcast to respond to questions regarding how the down economy is impacting HR.  One panelest began talking about how people will "hunker down" in their current jobs even if they hate them because they are scared of leaving.  This should make it tougher to recruit.  On the other hand, another panelist suggested that companies are scaling back on hiring, so there are fewer jobs.  In fact, many companies are laying people off.  The net result should mean that there are more people in the market to fill our open jobs--easier to recruit.  These assertions came with suggestions as to how we should respond to these changing conditions. 

My perspective on this is that you should keep managing your business as normal and watch your metrics for indicators that things are changing.  Turns out, despite the fact that my team recruits a couple hundred people per month in locations across the US, we haven't seen any change in our ability to execute on this hiring at this point.  We are still having to work just as hard to find people and they are still just as willing to move jobs when we do. 

I'm not here to suggest that the down economy isn't having an impact on business, but rather that we can't simply assume that it is.  Know what impact it is having.  Don't guess or assume.  If it's not impacting you now, that's great.  Keep on, keeping on.  But, start planning for the impact to come in the near future.  As HR professionals, it's our job to manage our areas and make decisison based on real data and evidence.

-Jason

I'm thankful that this election  is nearly over.  I actually look forward to the nasty political ads being replaced by beer and car commercials.  At least the car companies have evolved to a place that when they lie to us, it's not completely transparent.  But I digress.

Elections are an interesting time to observe and think about human behavior and our decision making process.  I've kept my own observation limited this year because, frankly, I get depressed if I look at it too closely.  One person said to me the other day that she was fearful that if Obama was elected, the terrorists would come after us.  I asked her to share with me how she arrived at that conclusion and she didn't really have a good answer.  I suspect it's something she saw on a McCain commercial. 

Then, the other night, my son and his friend were talking about the election because they had gotten the opportunity to vote in a staged election at their school.  My son's friend was saying that his friends were calling him a racist because he voted for McCain.  My son, despite the fact that he voted for Obama, was incensed by the idea.  Turns out, this young man voted for McCain because of his education policies.  It's too bad that the most enlightened political discourse going on in our communities is with our children but they aren't allowed to vote. 

The list of intersting and depressing election related observations goes on.  The few conclusions on the surface for me are these.  First, when our children are casting more informed votes than we are as adults, we are being lousy citizens.  There's no reason not to be informed in this world of the intranet and information overload.  Second, people make decisions emotionally and with no regard to what's rational.  It's a nice notion that we think we are rational beings, but it's simply not true.  Let's hope our emotions lead us to a new leader who will right the ship in the next four years. 

-Jason

We had the privilege to present at the YP Iowa Conference last week.  As an Iowa native, I was blown away by and incredibly proud of what’s going on with young professionals in Iowa.  This is a group that has passion and a vision for the future.

 

We met some great people at the conference and came back really energized by the experience.  If you want to see state that’s doing some great things for young professionals, check out one of Iowa’s statewide initiatives at www.generationiowa.com.  

 

Thanks to YP Iowa, specifically Annie Thomas, for putting on a great event and inviting us to be a part of it. 

 

Rock on Iowa! 

I was recently asked by someone for some advice.  The question sounded something like this, "Since we are both the same age but you have gotten farther ahead in your career than I have, I was hoping you could provide me with some advice on how to promote myself better to my employer."  What a great question! 

The person asking this question is on a journey to success.  He's asking the right questions and taking ownership for his own results.  As I though about the question more, I realized that while he perceieved this issue was promotion of his own skills and talents, the real question he was asking was, "How did you get where you are?" He was hoping that he could then take the answer and replicate it for himself.  I wish it were that simple. 

As I thought about how to answer the question, I decided to share with him a few things that I believe have enabled my success thus far in my career.  The bulk of my answer boiled down to two key things.  First, I have always had a plan.  Since graduating from college, I've always been one who had a 5 year goal for my career.  Certainly, my goals have changed over time, but the goal has always been there.  These goals have kept me focused and motivated to drive my career forward. 

Once you are clear on where you are going, being intentional about getting there was the second piece of advice.  That means taking advantage of opporutnities when they are presented.  Most often, opportunities don't come when you are fully ready for them.  You have to be ready to sieze those opportunities when they come.  It also means investing in training and experience that prepares you to achieve your goals.  As an example, if your goal is to move into management at your company and an opportunity to work on a high profile project at work comes along, you should volunteer for that project, even if you don't have the extra time in your day.  You may need to work extra for a while, but consider it an investment in your career.  Those who invest daily are the individuals who are getting promoted and getting ahead. 

After sending my response, what I realized is that it's a powerful exercise to ask yourself the question, "what did I do to get here?"  If your answer isn't pretty clear and easy to determine, you probably are letting life happen to you.  You may be relying on luck as your main strategy.  You probably should and could be farther ahead than you are.  All you have to do is decide where you are are going and begin the process of intentionally taking steps and making decisions that will get you there. 

-Jason

I am sure you use e-mail.  Congratulations.  You probably get some news on-line, maybe you do some shopping and you probably "do the google" from time to time.  But did you know:

• Over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog.
• More than 147 million Americans use the Internet.
• Over 57 million Americans read blogs.
• 1.7 million American adults list making money as one of the reasons they blog.
• 89% of companies surveyed say they think blogs will be more important in the next five years.
• 9% of internet users say they have created blogs .
• 6% of the entire US adult population has created a blog .
• Technorati is currently tracking over 70 million blogs .
• over 120 thousand blogs are created every day .
• There are over 1.4 million new blog posts every day .
• 22 of the 100 most popular websites in the world are blogs .
• 120,000 new blogs are created every day .
• 37% of blog readers began reading blogs in 2005 or 2006 .
• 51% of blog readers shop online .
• Blog readers average 23 hours online each week

Seems to me, that while you might not get it yet, blogs present a pretty powerful opportunity to reach and connect with customers, potential customers, potential employees, etc.  Are you a part of the revolution, or is it leaving you behind?
-joe

In a recent seminar, one of the boomer attendees brough up an excellent point regarding how the different generations view the concept of "friends" differently.  We were discussing some of Gallup's research where they conclude that an employee who has a "best friend" at work is 7 times more likely to be engaged in their job.  The boomer in our audience stated that he thinks it less likely that Boomer's would have a best friend at work because they may only have a few best friends in their lives.  His perspective was that young people have many more best friends than previous generations. 

This got me to thinking, how is social media and technology in general changing how we form and think about friendships.  Browsing on Facebook and Myspace will reveal many individuals who have hundreds, if not thousands, of friends in cyberspace.  Are these really friends?  To the myspace generation, these are as much friends as the people you sit next to at lunch.  Does this definitional change impact how these young people are forming friendships outside of cyberspace?  Do they have as many friends or best friends as their parents did?  It might actually be the case that this generation will have fewer "best friends" who will be replace by multitudes of cyber-friends. 

I'm not sure I have a handle yet on how I feel about this transition or even what it might mean to our workplaces and communities.  What I am certain of is that change is happening.  The very nature of how people interact with one another seems to have been changed forever by technology.  Not only do we type emails instead of talking to one another, not only has "chat" replaced phone calls, we are now learning to "tweet" on Twitter where we only have a few words to make our point. 

Contrary to the point our boomer friend made, it might be that boomers have more best friends than any other generation.  In fact, it might be that the days of having "best friends" are numbered.   

-Jason

Do you Twitter?

Great find, thanks to Laurie, over at HRM Today:

Carmen Hudson (aka Peopleshark) wrote an excellent blog series called, "Five Days to Twitter Literacy (Twitteracy).

Did you read it? If not, you missed out.

You can follow Carmen on Twitter, you can read her blog, but you should definitely follow her advice and get schooled on Twitter ASAP.

You can follow me on Twitter as well.
-joe

From Gaping Void:

Talent Anarchy has been busy lately!  We had an open enrollment workshop (Bridging the Gap) last week in Omaha, and it was a big hit!  We had a great group of folks come out for the workshop, had some great interaction and participation in the workshop and had some exciting conversations after the workshop.  We even had time to grab a bite to eat with friend and talent rock-star Maren Hogan, who not only came and checked out our workshop but then gave us some love.

We also had a client sponsored workshop last week that gave us another opportunity to work with HR, OD, Talent and Management folks from a variety of organizations, and examine generational differences and transition.  A lot of people are thinking about and talking about these issues, but not a lot of folks have a plan of action yet, so this workshop really resonates.

It also appears that each of these workshops should lead to some additional work for us and that is exciting.  We are also looking forward to presenting at the 2008 Iowa Young Professionals Conference in October, and we have just learned that we have been selected to develop and deliver a professional development series for an organization a little closer to home...details to follow.

And today, we venture up the interstate to Sioux City, Iowa to deliver Bridging the Gap to another group of folks...and hopefully that will also lead to something else as well.

Have a good one.

-Joe