Organizations are experiencing another perfect storm in recruiting and hiring. A combination of decreasing employee engagement, increasing turnover and fewer skilled candidates available, is making it tough for companies to get the right resources. Given these challenges to bringing people in, we know that retaining our rock stars and setting up good alumni referral relationships with those who do leave is critical.
And engagement is a problem. According to Gallup research, “an astounding 70 percent of U.S. employees are not showing up to work fully committed to deliver their best performance. Adding insult to injury, 52 percent of those workers are basically sleepwalking through their day, and 18 percent of them are busy acting out their unhappiness.“ That “acting out” usually takes the form of lower productivity or looking for a new job.
In Inc.com recently, Marcel Schwantes attributes the lack of engagement to manager performance, but in many organizations, it is not about managers being bad managers. In my experience many employees are uncertain about how they add value to their organization, where their careers are going and how they can advance. Too many employees don’t understand the connection between their job responsibilities, their personal career goals and their company’s business objectives. Without the connection between the skills that they bring to the table, the ideas of success that motivate them and the organization’s goals, employees can’t see their path forward. That uncertainty, especially when they don’t see an internal career path that interests them, is a source of frustration on the job and frequently a cause for leaving the company. We need to train managers on how to help employees understand their value, help them advance and inspire them to perform. (more…)
“I’m so stressed!” “This is so stressful!” “I don’t need stress in my life right now!”
These commonly heard phrases all point to the idea that stress (and the difficult people who cause it) is something negative that needs to be eradicated from your life. There have been many debates on the best strategies to combat stress in the long-term but everyone is different and this is something that is really important to remember.
Women, and parents in general, often try to find ways to get rid of stress to help manage their many responsibilities more efficiently, like juggling career and family duties. These come on top of the fact that women face additional challenges in the workplace, including sexual harassment and gender discrimination that have been well documented by the media and research as well. So, it’s no wonder that we women feel extra stressed at work. (more…)
Continuing our New Year/New Career theme, this inquiry on top job boards is perfectly timed. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana: I have been looking for a job for several months and have applied for jobs on all the top job boards, but am having no luck. I hired a resume writer that fixed my resume and have had people tell me my resume is strong, but I’m not getting call-backs. What am I doing wrong? – Sad in Sacramento
Dear Sad,
Sorry to hear you’re not having much luck so far in your job search. There could be many reasons you’re not getting responses, including these common challenges:
You’re not positioning yourself well for the jobs you’re most qualified for
You don’t have the right keywords in your applications/resume to line up uniquely with each position description
You’re not being picky enough, and you’re spending your energy on anything that looks slightly interesting instead of the jobs you’re qualified and excited to get
However, based on the way you phrased your question, I think you’re relying too heavily on the top job boards to connect you with your next employer. I know that there are so many online job search websites out there like Monster.com, Indeed.com and CareerBuilder.com (my old alma mater!) and they advertise themselves as having the most job listings, but quantity isn’t the same as quality.
Because they’re so big and attract so many job seekers to apply online, recruiters use the bigger job boards to collect large numbers of resumes that go into even larger databases. The databases allow keyword sorts and algorithmic searches that spit out a few candidates for each job so the recruiter can go through them, but the average number of resumes collected for a job on the top job boards is over 200!
It’s hard for you to stand out in such a sea of text. If the recruiters had time to sort through all 200 resumes for each job you might have a better chance, but no one has that much time (except the computers). As it is, recruiters spend on average less than 10 seconds on each resume they take the time to screen, so unless your resume is a perfect match for the job description, the likelihood you’ll be overlooked is very high. In addition, many of the jobs on these large sites aren’t even real. Recruiters often put out sample positions to experiment with what kind of resumes they’ll receive (to help them write the real one), and/or to fill up their databases so they can quickly pull some resumes as soon as they receive a new search request. These factors together are why fewer than 5% of people who apply online get invited in for interviews.
The good news is that your experience is very common, which says to me that your success rate so far says less about you and more about the job boards themselves. According to these statistics if you keep applying online, eventually you’ll end up in that coveted 5%.
The bad news is that these applications take a long time for you to respond to, and this isn’t an efficient use of your time. It can also lead to a situation (which it sounds like you’re in) where your confidence is shaken.
Be strategic and go where the recruiters look first
The top job boards do have a wide variety of postings and many people applying, but think of them as the haystack and think of your next job as the needle. You can spend all your time inefficiently sifting through straw or you can strategically find a magnet. I suggest you start using a magnet.
One of the best magnet strategies around is plain old networking. Why? Because the minute a recruiter gets a new open job requisition s/he scans their contacts to see who they know that might know the perfect candidate. Some of your contacts are on their lists and the best way to get to the top of that pile of 200 resumes is to get a personal referral from someone the recruiter knows.
Another great magnet strategy is to apply for jobs on smaller sites that are small enough that the recruiters don’t get too many resumes. In each major industry you’ll find specific sites run by professional associations or other groups that tend to have higher quality jobs for that industry than the major job boards. While you may be among a slightly higher calibre of candidates, the number of resumes/opening will be smaller in most cases and the recruiters are more likely to give these site’s applicants greater weight.
Searching the top job boards is still a good idea to help you stay abreast of who’s hiring and what they’re looking for, but I suggest that you be much more selective with your applications and put that extra energy into figuring out which jobs you have the best chance of getting and networking to find them.
Resources you can use
To help you out in becoming more strategic and time-efficient, our Career Transition Program has tons of tips and tricks to help you. Also, you can download a list of the top job boards in 10 industries to help you target your searches more specifically.
P.S. – Have a question you’d like anonymous support on? Write me!
P.P.S. — Need the inside track on your job search? Let me help you without the cost of personal coaching with my comprehensive online career transition program.
Ever want to look into a crystal ball and see the future? What is the future of work going to look like and will you be ready? – Click To Tweet
How will you lead in the rapidly changing future of work? Start by understanding that the workplace is changing and becoming more fluid. Here are some trends to watch for:
Organizations are beginning to resemble organic systems more than mechanical ones, so learn to master change.
As automation takes over rote tasks, people will have to specialize in people, and to succeed you must master human systems.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana,
My situation is that I am embarking on a second career. I’ve been a career paralegal for 20 years and in recent years earned a masters in marketing and an MBA. When I apply for marketing jobs, I often hear “entry level.” I am a professional, there is nothing entry level about me and many, if not most of my skills are transferable in one way or another. If I can manage high-profile cases and be a project manager on others, I believe with my experience and new knowledge, I can do all things marketing. I want to secure a Marketing Management position, not perform administrative tasks. Where do I begin? – Disconnected in D.C.
Dear Disconnected,
Welcome to the peculiar and exciting challenges of changing careers! The kinds of challenges you’re encountering tend to the be the reasons people are afraid of trying to make a career switch in the first place, but I am living proof that it can be done (more than once)!
Tip #1: Make Your Case
Any time you apply for a job, whether in a field you’ve long been associated with or in a new field entirely, you need to be explicit in all aspects of your application (i.e., cover note, resume, LinkedIn profile and in-person interactions) about why you’re the perfect fit for the job they’re seeking to fill. When you’re changing careers, this really puts the onus on you to help translate your legacy experience into the requirements of the job for which you’re applying. So in your situation you have to explicitly make the case for how your paralegal experience prepares you well to succeed as a marketing manager or coordinator. (more…)
Networking can be hard, nervewracking, expensive and time-consuming. It can also afford you otherwise unavailable job opportunities and ultimately provide you with the tools you need to find success and stand out in your field. Especially as we head into the New Year, when everyone is looking to find ways to improve their business, it’s time to look at some networking secrets that can help you get ahead in 2018.
If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right and there are specific strategies that business professionals use to be successful, and make connections with the most valuable contacts.
Instead of showing up, getting a glass of wine and moseying around at a business mixer step up your game like you know you can. Keep these networking secrets in mind as you prepare for your next event and you’ll reap the benefits in 2018, as you work with the new members of your network who can help you meet your goals in the New Year.
Your Unique Value is Critical
Relationships are reciprocal. When meeting someone, you want to provide as much value as you hope to get from them. When you provide them something unique it makes you memorable and valuable. This is an important piece of making a mutually beneficial connection. Instead of immediately asking for what you need, provide a solution or opportunity for the other person first. (more…)
Bosses, Do you know what’s really going on in your organizations? According to the Speak Truth to Power Survey I fielded last month, no. You’re often not hearing what your people really think.
According to my unscientific-but-interesting poll, almost half your potential workforce (48%) indicated they are actively withholding their truth in the workplace more than 25% of the time. But guess what? The Corporate Executive Board found scientific corollary data that’s even scarier.
Companies whose employees were afraid to speak up suffered 5.8% lower total shareholder return than those with cultures that encouraged open communications.
Where fear was more prevalent, fraud and misconduct were higher.
59% of companies surveyed said that $1 million worth of harm would have to be at stake for employees to share honest negative feedback (29% said $10 million).
How vulnerable are you?
We all know that everything on the top of everyone’s mind doesn’t really belong in the workplace, but the numbers indicate there’s a disconnect big enough for ethical and lost opportunity trucks to drive through. This is reinforced by the finding that people reported in my survey that they were penalized more often for speaking their truth in situations that were ethical in nature (42%) than in situations which were bottom line in nature (57%). All this leaves you and your organization vulnerable in ways it doesn’t have to be. (more…)
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Hello Dana,
[Note is abbreviated-ed.]
Quite complicated and online advice is scant. I would love to get your advice on the following: A few years ago I joined a well-known organization as a manager. The role requires a specialist and generalist combination of skills, knowledge as well as experience that is unusual and difficult to source. The place has a toxic corporate culture. Many of my staff were long-time, unionized employees who were expecting to be promoted into that position. Naturally, they were very bitter about an outsider coming in above them. Despite my best and extended long-term efforts, only some of them ever really came around about me. As a clique they resorted to workplace sabotage, lies, harassment and so forth in an effort to turn people against me and ultimately to drive me away so that one of them might eventually gain the promotion they were anticipating. (Other than my cutthroat staff, everyone else liked me.)
Due to one of their schemes finally succeeding, I left the organization. The clique started a rumor and manufactured “proof” that I was planning to resign to take another job elsewhere. Executive management believed it, did not bother to check with me about this rumor (this was largely due to the CEO being so strongly turned against me by the clique’s lies) and sent me packing. When the truth came out, executive management was very embarrassed and corporate HQ was abuzz about this for quite some time.
Since my leaving, executive management eliminated some but not all of the nasty players from the organization. The CEO hired external consultants to spread false negative information about me to other potential employers which have cost me several great job offers, as well as to do extensive research into my personal and professional past. Many reliable contacts have indicated to me that these ex-employers want me to return.
[I may have the opportunity to return to the company and the CEO who fired me is now out; there is another executive who is currently in the CEO slot who likes me better. If I go back and this second CEO is in place it could mean an upgraded position, though this is not guaranteed. It’s also not clear that this CEO will stay in place, and the original CEO may even return.]
The organizational climate is toxic. There is a high rate of turnover in senior and middle management. The old position was inadequately resourced in terms of tools, equipment, resources, personnel. The work has not progressed much since my departure, so there is additional time pressure. Executive management has a habit of stringing people along with empty promises (raises, promotions, opportunities). It was a hellish experience to work there last time. If I decline to return, I cannot be sure this ex-employer will stop interfering with my professional life.
My questions are:
When is it a good idea to go back to a bad employer with a toxic corporate culture? Never?
If I am contacted about a possible position, what should my strategy be?
Any advice on negotiating the position to maximize the likelihood that things will work well (my value, leverage, the role, reporting structure, compensation, title, termination clause, etc)?
Would you recommend going back or staying away? Why?
What would be red flags warning me to avoid this ex-employer?
Conversely, what would be positive signs that the ex-employer genuinely intends to make things better?
If things go bad again, how might this be explained to a future potential employer?
If I decide to walk away, what can I do to ensure they leave me be?
I really hope you reply and post it so that readers can get something out of this as well. There is nothing else quite like this situation so available advice is almost completely lacking.
Thanks in advance. Have a great day! – Reluctant Boomerang in ???
Dear Potential Boomerang,
That’s quite a story! Rather than address each question separately, I’ll respond more generally. (more…)
When Dana first announced The Woman Effect, which recognizes that gender balanced groups produce better results than gender-dominant groups, we noted that this philosophy was informing efforts to improve conditions for even the poorest countries. That was 5 years ago! We asked Jeff to give us an update on women’s empowerment approaches in 2017, and we’re happy to report some progress! – InPower Editors
By: Jeff Paddock
In 2012, the World Bank took a stand with a detailed report confirming the correlation between women’s empowerment and economic development. The report firmly connected a country’s growth with the participation and inclusion of its female population, although they were careful not to say the word “cause.” While the correlation is strong, to date we have not confirmed that women’s empowerment causes economic development, and until we can rule out the alternative view – that development causes women’s empowerment – the notion remains a theory. However, this lack in evidence makes it more important that we seek to pursue the issue. How far have we come since 2012? How close are we to knowing?
Where We Stand – The Research
The World Economic Forum seems optimistic in their recent analysis, Tracking the Gender Gap Over Time. Gender gaps are closing in countries around the world, even in developing nations. This is encouraging, to say the least. First, however, we should analyze the details of the World Bank’s 2012 Gender Equality and Development report and explore more deeply how women’s empowerment is important to economic development. With this understanding, it will be easier to interpret recent trends in gender equality, and more interesting when we look at a follow up report from the World Bank called Voice and Agency.
We’ve established that gender is a serious issue in economic development. I have seen first-hand what happens when low-income households suffer from the repression of mothers and daughters. Most of the people I’ve worked with in Latin America have been women who consistently work for, and invest in, the family. The World Bank and others have found that women are more likely than men to invest in a child’s well-being, which can take the form of school payments, medicines, and many other forms of care that helps them grow into a more healthy, productive member of the community. When we cut off access to resources for these women, it affects productivity on communal, even national levels.
Roughly 40 percent of working people around the globe are women, so by sheer numbers, the 2012 report pointed out to the developing world that half of its work force merited more investment. For substantial progress, though, they got down in the weeds; down into the quality women add to the economy (and society). The 2012 report showed that closing economic gender gaps correlated with new policies targeting the household, health improvements for younger generations, and institutions that are more representative of the population. Cause and effect aside, the 2012 report made us all yearn for the gender gaps to shrink, and some of them did.
Gender Gaps – The Differences That Matter Most
There are four key gender gaps the more recent World Economic Forum report focuses on in their report.
Health
Unfortunately, progress in health is a flat line having changed only 2 percent since 2006: little to no progress has been made giving women greater access to health care, but that’s not exactly a bad thing given that most of the gaps around the world are more than 90 percent closed already. The World Bank, and many other organizations, are clear about the reasons for targeting health, which include lower mortality rates for women and population control with reproductive rights.
Education
There is better news in education. Education is a lot like health in that most gaps are more than 90 percent closed (excluding Sub-Saharan Africa). The closing of the gender gap by 5 percent in education gives us cause to hope that the gap in health still has room for improvement. For one thing, we know that higher education amongst women correlates with lower and later fertility rates. In addition, greater literacy and knowledge gives women qualifications they need to participate in political and economic activity.
Politics
It isn’t until we get to politics that we see really good news. Ever since 2007, political empowerment indexes have been disappearing faster than fidget spinners at Toys R Us. We know that women’s input to policy leads to a more balanced market and fair institutional framework. While many of the Nordic countries have seen the biggest advancements, there are numerous champions of political gender equality in the developing world such as Nepal, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and South Africa. Many of these countries have closed their political gender gaps by up to 35 percent in the last few years. These results vary widely based on political ideology, but clearly, women are having a greater impact on policy than before, because the gap in politics has closed by 9 percent worldwide in the last decade.
Economy
Surprisingly there is less economic participation and opportunity for women than before. The gender gap keeping women from working is back to where it was in 2010 at 59 percent even though it was 60 percent gone in 2013.
Obviously all of these developing country gender gaps are moving targets that indicate greater trends. Significant progress has been made by many NGOs and national governments around the world who fight for gender equality, but the volatility we see tracking these gender gaps is concerning. How can we tell if we’re any closer to knowing if women’s empowerment causes economic growth? What does the World Bank have to say about these trends?
Progress – The World Bank’s 2014 Update
There are a lot of buzzwords thrown around when discussing these findings. Market participation is a woman active in the work force. Gender-based violence is violence against a woman because she is a woman. The most important word to remember, however, and the one the World Bank focused on in their follow up report, is agency. Agency is “the ability to make decisions about one’s own life and act on them to achieve a desired outcome, free of violence, retribution, or fear,” a right that many women in the developing world still lack.
Agency does make a difference. I’ve seen agency at work in my experience running community finance programs in rural Honduras. Low agency looks like the woman who can’t come to the community meeting without her husband, and does not attend the follow-up session because the husband was unsupportive of the material. By contrast, I saw high levels of agency in one household where the mother had complete control over the family finances. The entire family acknowledged the father’s drinking problem and for the greater good, the mother took control and gave him a weekly allowance. These examples are on far ends of the scale, but they illustrate why women’s agency stood out to the World Bank as a key factor that led to economic growth.
While the first World Bank report from 2012 reads like the financial institution asking itself introspective questions and then diving into mounds of data to figure it out, the bank’s 2014 Voice and Agency report, carries the tone of a researcher who finally found her lead and is pursuing it with avid fascination. What they discovered was that agency deprivation, propped open the gender gap to make advances in other areas impossible. In other words, the key to women’s empowerment overall lies in the amount of agency she has and which then opens other doors to her. Of course, the reverse is also true; a lack of agency can exacerbate the surrounding problems. The driving message of the 2014 report was to turn this into an advantage; convincing countries that if one less degree of agency leads to huge deficiencies in economic development, why can’t one more degree of agency for women lead to a surge in economic development? This is why the World Bank focuses on collective action projects to amplify the impact one women has to affect the global economy.
Key Dynamics – The Role of Technology
Take information and communication technologies (ICTs) as an example of agency and collective action. In the 2012 report, The World Bank found ICTs have created opportunities for women to participate in the work force. In the last two decades, industry in the developing world has moved from manufacturing to services. This movement from brawn to brains meant that women gained greater access to the economy, primarily because of breakthrough industries reliant on ICTs including banking, printing, publishing, insurance, and information processing. By 2014, women composed 80 percent of call centers in Malaysia. In the Caribbean alone, data entry jobs opened doors for women in Jamaica and Barbados to participate in the job market. The World Bank knew that ICTs showed promise for gender in economic development and in their follow-up report, they got closer to the how and the why.
When a woman participates in collective action, it amplifies her agency. Hence, those who fight for women’s empowerment use ICTs as megaphones. Technology platforms for individuals to use their voices have been springing up to address threats to women’s rights, such as Harassmaps in Cairo and Mumbai, to Hollaback! which is active in over twenty countries. ICTs are just one example of the new spaces contributing to gender equality, but they may be no more than a facilitator; real progress, notes the report, comes from institutional change and movements against cultural norms.
We have a lot of reason to be hopeful given the world’s progress since 2012. While we still don’t know if women’s empowerment causes economic development, we are certainly closer to finding out. The World Bank seems to have zeroed in on some of the household issues that provide clues to solving gender gaps around the globe. Agency might be the first clue that gives us hope. If there’s any reason to feel more empowered by these findings, it’s this: five years ago the world took a stand to identify the economic cost of injustice for women in the developing world, and now, the world is on the case and we’re learning more every year about how the power of choice helps women contribute to a brighter future.
About the Author
Jeff is a freelance writer and works on the ethical considerations of economic development and cash aid programs around the world. He currently works in Honduras, supporting local community projects through micro-finance and holds two degrees in Philosophy and International Affairs. Follow Jeff’s blog Suddenly Human.
FREE PDF Guide to Women in Leadership
Executive Coach Dana Theus shares her tried and true strategies to help women excel in higher levels of leadership and achieve their executive potential.
Welcome to “Dear Dana”, our weekly column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching. Please write in and tell me about a career challenge or frustration you’re facing at the office! – Dana Theus
Dear Dana, I used to love my job; recently my colleague caught me complaining about it. I guess I’ve started complaining more than I realized. It kind of woke me up and then I heard you talking about staying too long at a job. I’m wondering if I’m just bored? How long should you stay at a job? Should I look for a new job? – Wondering in Wisconsin
Dear Wondering,
I’m glad that your colleague and I could “wake you up” to this question: how long should you stay at a job? Of course, the answer is personal to each of us in the context of a particular job, career and life, but I think the main insight you picked up on is that no matter how well matched you are at first, every employer and every person reach a point where it’s time to reconsider or renegotiate in order to support your continued growth.
There are two main ideas here we should all consider:
You and your job have a relationship, and like all healthy relationships you need to regularly review and renegotiate your agreement, keeping in mind that you can always agree to part.
Jobs have a natural progression, illustrated in the graphic below, where we go through the process of learning how to succeed, and then accomplishing successes, and then building on your success to position you for your next big accomplishment. And if you don’t move on to your next thing within the job you have, you probably have stayed too long.
The key is for you to realize that in order to keep growing in your career, you have to notice the point at which you’ve accomplished a lot of what your current job offers you and then leverage your personal growth to accomplish new things. Sometimes your current job can adapt to allow you to grow into new capabilities and sometimes it can’t. This point may take a year or two or it may take decades, depending on you and your job. For many these days, it’s a shorter period of time (about 4 years in the private sector), which is why I encourage people to think about their career as fluid, and to focus on career health in addition to job satisfaction.
Yes, you can stay at your job too long. – Click To Tweet
It’s not your employer’s job to manage your personal growth
The problem for many of us is that we have unconsciously given the responsibility for our personal growth to our employers. We get a job and expect it (and our boss) to keep feeding our interests. It’s possible that this is what’s going on for you. You’re unconsciously bitter at your employer for not keeping your job interesting, when in fact it’s you that has grown to the point where you’re ready to learn new things.
What can you do to keep growing in your career if this job has gotten bored? Even though it’s obvious that you can look for another job, it’s not necessarily what I recommend as step one. Step one, is really for you to sit down and take stock of where you are in your life and career. Based on this, you can work on developing your ideas about your dream jobat this point in your life. Do this regularly because it will keep changing! We should all do this every year or two at least.
Armed with this information, you can take a fresh look at your current job and examine whether it has the potential to become your dream job if you make some tweaks here and there. Even if you believe your current job can’t become your dream job, it may be a good idea to talk to your boss. For all you know, she has ideas on how your job could change, or whether there are other opportunities at the company that might be well suited to your development path. But don’t give your boss an ultimatum unless you’re ready to leave your job if she can’t make you a better offer.
So how long should you stay at a job? That’s up to you and your job, but that’s the question you should be asking yourself on a very regular basis, and listen to the answer! We have lots of resources here in our Coaching Community to help you in this process. Use them!
Jeff is a freelance writer and works on the ethical considerations of economic development and cash aid programs around the world. He currently works in Honduras, supporting local community projects through micro-finance and holds two degrees in Philosophy and International Affairs. Follow Jeff’s blog 
