Resume

No Problem

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A successful job hunter must demonstrate suitable qualifications for a position when they are interviewing, including qualities beyond their skillsets that distinguish them from other qualified candidates. This is where your Three Key Strengths apply. These strengths distinguish you by demonstrating the qualities and characteristics you have utilized in exercising the responsibilities of your previous positions, and the accomplishments you have achieved.

A recent experience
After waiting a tedious hour in a doctor’s waiting room, I was finally asked to move to one of the treatment rooms. I thanked the receptionist, who promptly replied: “No problem.” This caught me by surprise. I’ve observed this term is used increasingly in the retail and service worlds, and it struck me at that moment that it was an inappropriate response.

Put off for an hour before a receptionist directed me to a room, I continued to wait. After another 30 minutes, I asked if the doctor would be available soon. She responded by telling me it would not be too long. I thanked her, to which she replied: “No problem.” Again. She said she would notify me when he became available.

I wondered why this well intentioned comment annoyed me and I paused to give it some additional thought. I decided it would be nice to hear: “I apologize for the delay; the doctor will be with you in just a few minutes….” Or “Sorry to keep you waiting.” But somehow, I had inconvenienced her by asking about the delay, and she was evidently telling me it was not a problem for her to report a longer delay.

Have you noticed that the most widely used statement made by retail sales, service representatives, attending nurses and receptionists today seems to have originated from a manual? It is thrown around constantly and leaves me with a feeling that I somehow inconvenienced the person providing a product or service, and they are doing me a big favor by having to respond.

Vermont Travel
I ask you to put this aside for one minute to tell you about a recent experience I had traveling with a friend to Vermont. We chose to travel north to take in the small town and farm country environment which is in sharp contrast to the New Jersey suburban atmosphere where we live. The surprises were many and pleasant. But the one that made the greatest impression is that I didn’t once hear the expression “no problem” during our trip.

Once it occurred to me this experience with Vermont retail and service people was different from my local experience, I began to look for it. And this activity became the most surprising part of my experience. Instead of the detached cliché, “No Problem” associated with any request from me, I heard things like: “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” Or “It will be my pleasure to do that for you.” “Right away!” “I’ll be two minutes.” “Sorry for the inconvenience.” And my favorite: “Of course.”

I noticed the effect it had on me was very palpable and positive. Those responses were genuine, and they were not out of a “handbook.” The only “problem” I could foresee using alternative and appropriate responses is their use might create a new level of service expectation.

There are appropriate times when “no problem” may be applicable. I limit these occasions to situations when I’m asking for a task, favor, or product which is out of the ordinary, above and beyond the range of normal service expectations. It is then that an exclamation of “No problem” is appropriate and welcomed.

The Air Freight Forwarding Company
One example of the proper use of the expression involves a young Air Freight Forwarding company executive which was asked he could deliver 17 generators to Germany as quickly as possible. The company exec responded to the request saying they could receive, crate, and process the generators withing 48 hours for air shipment to Germany. The commitment was made before the air shipper learned each generator weighed 2,000 pounds and would be delivered on a flatbed truck, one at a time and uncrated.

The owner of the air freight forwarding company again said: “No problem,” after learning of the difficult logistics in handling the freight. The small office in downtown New York City had no loading dock to handle the request for crating and shipping the large generators.

Telling the customer their request would not be a problem was a huge commitment and a stretch for the small company. They met their deadline, but not without sacrifice and great effort. On a positive note, the customer was so impressed they remain today one of the shipping company’s top 10 customers.

“No Problem” became the signature phrase for the air freight company. They would do the impossible for a client. But it was not to be used for routine requests. That response was: “Consider it done.”

How eliminating the use of “No Problem” during a Job Interview makes a positive impression

After my Vermont trip and introduction to appropriate and improved responses to service requests, I began to consider how this plays out for the job hunter and the many new interactions encountered during their job hunting program.

In my conversations with hiring managers and other outplacement coaches, I’ve concluded that the expression “No problem” is overused to the point of being cliché. It is viewed as rote, and lacking sincerity.

I recommend removing it from your vocabulary during a job interview and replying to requests with a direct and sincere answer. It will be noted and appreciated.

“May a have a copy of your project report?” “An extra copy of your resume?” “Of course. I have extra copies with me.”

“Do you have time to meet with the incumbent?” “I was hoping I would have the opportunity.”

“Do you mind if I take a quick call; I have to speak with this individual?” “Of course. Would you like me to leave the room for your privacy?

“Would you like a tour of the facility?” “That would be very helpful to me.”

These are much more sincere and appropriate responses than the stock “No Problem.”

See additional blogs for further discussion of do’s and don’ts when participating in a job interview.

Ben

Withering Expertise Presents Opportunities in the Present Job Market

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Along with fluctuating product and service shortages, backlogs, and disruptions, employers are seeing significant workforce shortages, especially gaps in experienced workers. There are three main reasons for this personnel shortage and the loss of valuable skills and experience:

First, the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the workforce for health-related reasons: workers left to avoid personal exposure to the virus; to recover from the virus; or to fill in as a healthcare provider at home.

Second, many baby boomers and other retirement-eligible employees decided to leave the workforce, rather than continuing to work after retirement. By leaving the workforce, they have created significant expertise and experience gaps, based on their significant numbers in the workforce.

And third, many workers are rethinking their present career path and are casting a wide net in search of a different direction, a safer work environment, or a more fulfilling occupation, taking valuable experience with them.

Birth of the Virtual Office
Where possible during the pandemic, employers shut down offices, and created a work-from-home environment, which became the virtual office, an environment in which workers split their work time between office and home. While helpful and necessary, many employers have discovered that bonding, collaboration, and teamwork have suffered with the continued use of a virtual office, despite Zoom or Skype staff meetings.

Along with these shifting pressures on employers, it became necessary to transition a traditional work office to a virtual office with shifted communication methods, hiring, training, and performance measurement demands. These demands have created a wake of new practices, policies, and procedures in online services, order fulfillment, remote technical support, and customer contact. The challenge is to manage these changes without the experienced workforce needed for transition training, expertise, and experience.

Now, employers are facing rapid increases and changes in organizational processes, management, and order fulfillment demands. New hires are inheriting a lack of experience and expertise in those practices, procedures, and leadership.

Demand for Experience
Faced with shortages of qualified workers, expertise, and experience, there is a growing demand for experienced job seekers. The job hunter who has experience, is flexible, and welcomes challenge and change, is in high demand.

Three Key Strengths
There are key characteristics a hiring manager looks for, beyond the specific requirements of the advertised job. I call these characteristics Three Key Strengths and introduce them in my coaching to all my clients. Mastering the Three Key Strengths maximizes a job hunter’s adaptability to face the demands of the new and evolving job marketplace. The three key strengths are: Understanding the Big Picture, Creating Effective Working Relationships, and exhibiting Positive Work Ethics.

These strengths are not specifically mentioned in a job posting, but they cross all job families, industries, and professions. A job hunter who understands and exhibits these three key strengths has a significant advantage over the rest of the field of candidates.

How does the shortage of workforce experience and expertise affect me?
Shortages of worker expertise, experience and leadership, have opened new doors for experienced workers with established skills, including an understanding of operations, leadership, and processes.

For example, workers who have developed supervisory and management skills in one industry or company find these skills to be fungible and transferrable to other disciplines.

Because these skillsets are not always referred to in a job posting, I recommend developing and including your three key strengths throughout all areas of your marketing plan: your written and verbal resume, your summary statement, and your selected achievements.

Seeing and understanding the big picture is something that develops over time and must be developed with experience and observation. Along with learning to work effectively with others at all levels, developing team collaboration skills, and being tenacious in completing objectives, these skills are highly desirable to the hiring manager who is looking for these characteristics in potential job candidates.

By including your three key strengths throughout your job-hunting process, you demonstrate the high valued characteristics in the current workplace which has been hemorrhaging experience, leadership, and expertise. Their inclusion will propel you into top consideration as a job candidate.

Look for more information and application of the Three Key Strengths in future blogs.

Ben

Independence Superseded by Interdependence

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Recently I read a piece on LinkedIn that caught my attention. It said that for our workplaces to recover fully from the COVID-19 pandemic, we must move from a work environment of independence and isolation back to one of interdependence. This is a very good way of describing the transition from Personal Isolation to a fully functioning social structure.

We’d been through a period of forced independence, which was good to a point — even essential at times. Our ability to remain effective while working autonomously and independently has been remarkable. We have rediscovered tools such as self-reliance, self-motivation, and flexibility, and made the adjustments to contribute to our work, remain organized at home, and successfully function as individuals and as family members.

On the other hand, I have separately described the personal and social collateral damage personal isolation has caused. I’m referring to the damage caused by a lack of interaction and direct contact with other people. This has affected our social skills, our learning experiences and knowledge, limited our listening and adjustments to feedback, and handicapped our acceptance of broader thinking and collaboration.

Adjusting to the new working environment is like building a plane while flying it, and without any advanced preparation.

To recover fully from the effects of COVID-19, we must re-examine the isolation we have experienced, then identify and treat the collateral damage.

Our isolation has and will continue to apply the brakes on the full development of our personal and social potential for growth. Our recognition of this is important in our ability to perform, individually and collectively, at the highest levels. Collaboration and teamwork are essential to our ability to do a quality job, and to compete in today’s job marketplace.

Independence
Independence is not a bad word, depending on the context of its use. Sometimes, it can be liberating and necessary for creativity and personal growth. Most of us have said, at one time or another, that we would pay any amount of money for free time or independence.

But, when it comes to an undetermined or open-ended isolation, it can become detrimental, limiting our range and depth of creativity and personal development. It can stagnate progress by limiting experimentation, fresh ideas, risk taking, and collaboration.

Embracing Interdependence
We must recapture the socialization and collaboration which are associated with networking and teamwork. These are the keys to success for the job hunter, expanding his or her knowledge and preparing for what comes next.

Adjustments to future changes require our ability to work closely with others, to ignite teamwork through diversity, and to create solutions. Nationally, we must work closely and quickly to re-invent our sustainability in terms of energy, food, water, housing, and infrastructure to move ahead in a competitive global economy.

Any job you accept, in any industry, requires your ability to cooperate, coordinate, and collaborate. Developing personal flexibility and fostering teamwork are highly sought-after skills and are rewarded by an employer.

Work History and Resume
Look for, document, and articulate opportunities where you took part in a project or process, large or small, or met your work objectives and goals. Note how and where you participated in understanding the big picture, and how you encouraged and embraced suggestions, opinions, and ideas, to develop a consensus and create the best solutions.

Integrate examples of these results into all aspects of developing your job-hunting marketing plan. Independence is valued and has been a strength throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. However, diversity, collaboration, and process improvement have returned as keys to workforce success.

Look for my additional blogs on independence and interdependence, as well as my book, Job Hunting – Launching to Landing for more on demonstrating these characteristics.

Ben

Collateral Damage From the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Personal Isolation was an invaluable tool in the fight against COVID-19. But that’s not the whole story.

Pharmaceutical companies developed several vaccines which have been vital in preventing the spread of the disease and have saved countless lives. Other tools such as mask wearing, washing hands and work surfaces, and the development of new medications to treat COVID-19 infections have been effective, to varying degrees.

It is, however, personal isolation that has been, and remains, the most effective tool we have against the spread of disease.

In addition to isolating ourselves when we became infected, we reduced personal, social, and professional contact with each other as a preventive measure. We avoided crowds, public transportation, schoolmates, playmates, work associates, friends, neighbors, and even family members.

To support and preserve our social, professional, and personal contacts, we adopted the use of various tools to communicate, visually and digitally, avoiding in-person contact. While effective, these adaptations are not a substitute for direct contact, and in many ways, have become a subtle form of avoidance and isolation.

We cannot sustain and grow a vital economy, manage a family, or conduct our personal lives effectively in a long-term state of isolation.

The nuances of losing direct contact with others were not obvious at the onset of the pandemic. While necessary at the time, we are now aware of the missing elements and the advantages of sharing face-to-face time and space with other people.

Isolation sealed off seemingly trivial things: personal greetings, the sharing of observations, opinions, rumors, firsthand experiences, and personal and social stories. We lost our reactions to and from other people regarding our thoughts and opinions. The variety and quality of input we had on a typical day, both with people we know and complete strangers, evaporated.

We also lost the most valuable tool in managing a diverse workforce: The constructive interactive effects; the synergy created when groups of people collaborate in problem identification, analysis, and the development of innovative solutions.

Isolation inhibits our personal growth and also promotes polarization of social and political ideas. Without steady interaction with people, we lose valuable exposure, reactions, and diversity of ideas.

Personal Isolation leaves us stranded in a void of our own making, and limits our ability to adjust, interact, and develop our social and individual people skills. We inadvertently sustain a narrow, unchallenged, and even stagnant point of view.

How does isolation affect our job-hunting efforts?
Job hunting is a new endeavor for those seeking a job change because the elements involved differ from the current familiar job skills we practice, aspire to improve upon, and master. When we are looking for a job, we want to be as knowledgeable and proficient as possible. Job hunting requires a whole new skillset, regardless of what your occupation or status has been until now. We do not regularly practice job hunting skills sufficiently enough to sharpen our readiness. It requires focus, learning, planning, and practice.

The pandemic has left us out of practice, and it’s time to sharpen our communication, presentation, and interpersonal skills. This includes networking, refreshing and growing our contact list, and pursuing new referrals. We need to have our written and verbal resumes ready for sharing.

We must be prepared to shed our isolation cobwebs and regain proficiency in our social and communication skills to aggressively engage in a job hunt.

Look for additional information in my Source Blogs, and my upcoming book, Job Hunting – Launching to Landing.

Ben

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