Career Insights

Career Core Competencies

In the 1990 Harvard Business Review Hamel and Prahalad introduced the notion of Core Competencies in terms of a company doing strategic planning to maximize their competitive edge, and succeed.  These same principals that apply to core competencies in business can be applied to your career management.  A Core Competency is a proficiency that enables you to deliver unique value to customers, or employers.  Your Core Competencies are your knowledge, your ability to coordinate diverse skills and the ability to integrate multiple demands of the work well.  Your Core Competencies create sustainable competitive advantages for you and can help you to branch out into a variety of different work situations. 

You need to think about your core competencies in much the same way a company would.  Your Core Competencies should:

1.     Provide you with access to a variety of potential markets, and in your case this means employers and/or customers.  You need to have skills and expertise that will attract the attention of as many potential employers as possible.

2.     Contribute to the value of the employer’s or customers’ product or service – your ability to contribute to their success.

3.     Be difficult for competitors to imitate.   Being seen as having a unique and superior skill set will put you out front.

To develop your Core Competencies you must:

• Identify your key skills, and hone them into your strengths.

• Become clear about what you enjoy doing.   Chances are if you love doing something, you will do it well.

• Compare yourself with your peers, to ensure that you are developing unique expertise allowing you to stand out from the crowd.

• Develop an understanding of what skills and expertise your customers or employers truly value, and invest accordingly to develop and sustain those valued strengths.

• Create a career road map that sets goals for your professional and skills development.

• Pursue networks that will further build your strengths in core areas, and develop strong collegial relationships.

• Preserve and build upon your core strengths even as the labour market shifts, and prepare to apply those strengths in new areas.

• Look out for potential markets where you can market your skills.

• Divest of non-core skills to free up time that you can use to deepen your core competencies.  There is little sense developing skills that won’t serve you well.

The lessons of the business world regarding core competencies would be good for us to apply to our careers.   Those same principals that ensure the ongoing success of large companies may well ensure your success in a very competitive labour market.

Non-Linear Careers

In the 20^th century jobs were relatively stable, and the career was seen as something linear, a straight line with a beginning and an end – going from your first job to retirement.   Career development was seen as progression through relatively predictable sequence from point A to point B and so on, often within relatively stable corporate environments.  The best metaphor to describe the 20^th century career is that of the career ladder.   The goal was to climb the corporate or career ladder and if you worked hard enough eventually you would reach to top.

Today the whole notion of the linear career has been thrown on its head, and it is becoming less relevant, and increasingly problematic.  Linear career ladders are transforming into meandering career paths with far less predictability for workers.  There are many factors at play: the changing nature of work, changing corporate structures, globalization, the transition from the industrial age to the information age, changing demographics (an aging population), and changing societal values and norms, just to mention a few.

Today and in the future workers will have to develop stronger career management skills.  Arthur, Rousseau, and Parker have developed the Intelligent Career framework to assist clients along their career path.  This framework revolves around “ways of knowing”.   

It focuses on:

1. Knowing-how, identifying, and analyzing skills and abilities to determine your core competencies, and transferable skills.

2. Knowing-whom requires skills to build networks that will serve you well in your career development.  The focus is “improve the density and range of one’s networks” (Higgins 2001)
3. Knowing-why involves knowing why we work.  What are our motivations both as individuals and within occupations?

Careers paths are uneven and obstacle-laden processes (Lichtenstein, and Mendenhall, 2002).  Uncertainity in the changing world of work will mean that we will all have to continually upgrade and ensure that our career management and development skills prepare us for whatever we find along the path. 

RESEARCH YOUR WAY TO EMPLOYMENT

 TO BEGIN COMPANY RESEARCH, GO HOME!

Visiting a company's home page is a good way to start your job search.

Many corporate home pages reveal tons of facts that could give you an

edge over other job seekers, including:

• The company's history.
• The names and bios of top managers.
• Impressive achievements.
• The company's philosophy, goals and outlook for the future.
• Essential information: Where the company is located, how many employees currently work there and the name of a Human Resources contact.

To locate a company's home page, just type the name of the company 

in a general search engine, such as Google or Yahoo!. 

Once you find the company, look for a link that says "About Us" 

or "Company Info" or something along those lines and read every 

piece of information you can find. Browse through the rest of the site, 

including pages such as "Management," "Press Releases" and "Contact Us."

EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS PROFILE

Follow the link to find out what the Conference Board of Canada has defined as "employability" skills.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/education/learning-tools/pdfs/esp2000.pdf

Pundits and knitters find common ground in Web logs - Aug 10, 2005

Check out this article by one the blogging co-founders on what blogging is, and where it is going! ~  CNN.com - Pundits and knitters find common ground in Web logs - Aug 10, 2005.

Handling Rejection

While you are searching for work, you may face considerable rejection, do not let it get you down. You can transform rejection into a driving force that will bring about positive changes in your search skills. Sometime no matter how well you prepared, no matter how good your resume and cover letter are, or how well you think you have done at the interview you may receive a response "Thank you, your qualifications were excellent, but we have selected another applicant." At the time, it stings and you may be inclined to want to take it personally.

In many cases, this is for the better, even though you may not be able to see it at the time. I have been on many hiring committees and from experience when you are faced with many wonderful candidates; it may come down to the hiring committee trying to figure out who will fit the team.

Of course a hiring committee should choose the best candidate, and most of the time they do. However, when there are two equal candidates sometimes their choice will comes down to whom the team can see sitting across the lunchroom table – personal compatibility, or the right fit can mean a lot.

In the end, rejection might be a blessing in disguise for you, if the workplace is not a good fit for you your position there could be less than desirable. I am not for a moment justifying poor or discriminatory hiring practices; rather I am trying to shed light on notion that there is such a thing as a good fit. We all want to be in relationships that are a good fit.

Let’s be honest rejection is never easy. There is a whole range of emotions that we feel when we have been rejected; these feelings can be hopelessness, anxiety, anger, and even sadness. The down side of rejection is awful. The secret to coping with rejection is to create strategies to help you to depersonalize rejection and maintain your job search momentum. The trick is to keep moving forward.

Rejection can lead to addictive behavior and self-pity, both of which can have devastating consequences and can stop you in your tracks. Negative behavior feeds despair and it can become a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, if you take rejection as a measure of your self-worth the defeat will take over.

I recommend that you take the time to care for yourself; self-care can help to alleviate the consequences of rejection. Positive self-talk also modifies negative thoughts and feelings. Here are some basic tips for handling rejection:

• Reward yourself just for trying.
• Ask for help, reach out to positive people in your life.
• This may be a good time for introspection, examining your strengths and give you a chance to learn from recent events.
• It may even be time to regroup and to figure out a new plan of action.
• Do not be afraid to ask for feedback. Constructive feedback may helpful. However, if you ask an employer for feedback, provided an opportunity for them to do so in a non-threatening way, e.g. “I was wondering if you could provide me with feedback regarding my interview performance and how I might improve these skills. You may learn valuable tips, some employers might be willing to discuss how to improve your presentation, or why you were not a good fit, and make suggestions for subsequent interviews.
• Reviewing what you have to offer prospective employers also is useful.
• Reread your resume and to focus on your accomplishments and skills see if there is room to improve upon your resume and cover letter to represent better your abilities.
• Rather than focusing on the rejection, form a positive mental picture that allows you to see yourself, as you would like other to see you.
• Call up this mental picture any time you are disappointed.
• I also find yoga, meditation and affirmation helpful.
• Visualizing a peaceful place where you felt safe.
• Positive thinking can affect change. Shifting your thoughts or reframing your perspective can lead to positive changes.
• Learn techniques or practices that induce relaxation, sometimes it is as easy as concentrating on your breathing.
• Find ways to become involved with supportive and positive people. Volunteering in your community, and helping others is not only rewarding, it broadens your circle and may open you up to new and more exciting opportunities.
• Lessons in humility are opportunities for growth; frame the event as an opportunity to learn – not a failure.

If you become overwhelmed, you may consider getting the help of a therapist or personal coach to get past the fear of rejection. Sometimes the burden is too great to carry alone, the guidance and support of a caring professional my help you to develop coping skills that will improve the quality of not only your job search, but your life.

Rejection is harshest when you are focusing on one job at a time. Broaden your search; turn your job search into a hunt for the best opportunity. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You may encounter rejection and disappointment along the way, however, if you believe in yourself rejection will not shake your core. One final thought if life throws you lemons make lemonade.

Cross-Cultural Wisdom

Can one possess cross-cultural wisdom?  And, if so what is cross-cultural wisdom?  When I set out to design and create a workshop on Canadian culture and the Canadian work place with my colleague Randy, I soon realized that defining culture let alone workplace culture was an impossible task. 

Culture isn’t something that is fixed.  Rather is it amorphous, and hard to define.  This is where the problem begins.  How can we define culture?  One person can point to a work of art and say this is culture, someone else will tell you opera is culture.  Yet another person will let you know that what happens on the street is culture. 

For sake of this article I used Lustig and Koester’s definition of culture:

“Culture (is) a learned set of shared interpretation about beliefs, values, and norms which affects the behavior of a relatively large group of people”.

Further this definition, culture can be seen as human activities, and the products of those activities within an environment.  This means everything we do, say and even think is affected by culture.  Oh, and we can’t forget the environmental piece.  We all relate to our environment.   The human activities and the products that people produce, and the activities that they engage in will vary according to environment. 

For example, in Canada hockey is a part of our culture.  It came about as an activity that people could do during the long cold Canadian winter.  However, hockey is not going to be a part of Israeli, or Brazilian culture – finding ice could be a real problem for starters.

The next thing I want you to discuss is knowledge.  Knowledge is information organized and applied.  Everyday we are literally bombarded with cultural information.  Turn on the television, listen to the radio, use the internet, walk about amongst other people in a community, talk to other people and you will receive all kinds of different cultural information that you must decipher and make sense of.   So, what happens to us when we can’t figure out the cultural information being bombarded at us?  Chances are it will add to our stress, and anxiety and we might feel overwhelmed.   We begin to experience ‘culture shock’.   This may begin by feeling of hostility toward our new surroundings, and the local population.  We long to be back in a place “where things make sense”.

Life becomes difficult and a person in the throes of culture shock, he or she may feel isolated, frustrated and confused.  If you are feeling that, don’t despair this is all part of resettling a new country.   Whether it passes will depend on the way one react to different situations.

What can YOU do about culture shock?  This is where wisdom comes in.   Wisdom is experience and knowledge together with the power of applying them critically or practically. You can begin by developing your cultural knowledge of the local surroundings. Observe how people organize time, their use of space within the environment, the way they communicate with one another, their politics, common beliefs, their customs and social norms.  In essence observe and organize new cultural information as objectively as you can. Don't be quick to judge - stand back, watch, listen and learn.

In terms of developing cultural knowledge and decoding cultural information it will be easier for you if are open to receiving and trying to make sense of the information coming at you in your new environment.  The cross-cultural knowledge comes from being able to organize and apply new cultural information to daily situations like meeting new people, going to someone’s home for dinner, figuring out the local customs, and of course figuring out local workplace norms. 

There are all kinds of things one can do to organize all that new cultural information.  The most productive is being open to your new environment and embracing your curiosity.  That curiosity will can become the foundation for your enquiry into the new culture.  Become an anthropologist of sorts.  Focus on how things work and people relate to another in your new environment, rather than how you think they should work.  When we suspend our criticism we can engage in the new culture, and we will be open to our new surroundings.  However, harsh criticism of your new environment and the culture within that environment is not likely to win you any friends. 

If you resist the cultural information coming at you chances are you will lose out on new opportunities, and the quality of your life in this new environment may suffer greatly.  Applying your life experience and your knowledge of your new culture in practical ways can help you to develop cross-cultural wisdom.  This cross-cultural knowledge will serve you in your day-to-day life, allowing you to create a new life, and helping you to integrate to your in a new environment. 

Wireless technology changing work and play - Oct 18, 2005

Interesting article on CNN.com - Wireless technology changing work and play - Oct 18, 2005. For new immigrants to the Canadian workplace, there may be different social norms regarding all this wireless connectivity. Have you noticed them? Please share them...

The Seattle Times: Living: What makes a good boss?

Many JFSA clients have been managers in their home countries, and as you progress in your career, there will be numerous opportunities to manage and lead others. In fact, you can generally expect a 10% or more jump in your compensation, if you can lead and work well with others. This article from The Seattle Times:  The Seattle Times: Living: What makes a good boss?, gives some tips from a forthcoming book, about how to pave the way for your future success.

For example, 'knowing how to give credit' to others is very useful ~ for you and your employees. This is an important skill, and it can really pay dividends to you - in how easy it is to work with your colleagues, and your peers' or employees overall satisfaction in working with you and the company.

JFSA Job Match Event Calendar

Please check out JFSA's JobMatch Calendar!

New events are being added frequently!