Job Skills: Bits & Pieces Helps & Hints Collection

lwlutz@excite.com

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This is a collection of bits and pieces of information gathered through experience, reading, and listening. It is all about job skills, i.e. getting-a-job skills (resumes, interviewing, etc.) and keeping-a-job skills (salesmanship, leadership, management, and motivation). Plus, there are Great Quotes, and at the end -- links to other sites with related information. With rearrangement and fleshing out (and more time than I have right now) it should become quite a nice book. Until then enjoy this condensed hypertext free alpha-version on the WWWeb. And remember -- This page and all its contents Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000-2001 Lowell W Lutz. All rights reserved. © 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000-2001. (Except where previous copyright exists.)

...for more resumes or to search for your own job...

Pearls of wisdom:
		Quality must matter
		Deliver value
		Work together
		Be a mentor
		Relationships/partnerships
		Be a change agent
		Think constant improvement
		Create customer delight
		Technology is a commodity -- use it
		Use technology, but don't "use" people
		People are the competitive edge -- empower them

• Leadership is an intangible quality with no clear definition. That's probably a good thing, because if the people being led knew the definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them.
  Scott Adams from "The Dilbert Principle"

• Leadership
  • One can't push & lead at the same time.
  • Be an example.
  • Qualities
    • Strong as a father
      • Disciplining father
    • Gentle as a mother
      • Nursing mother
    • Transparent as a sibling
      • Caring sibling
  • Encourage, Comfort, & Urge
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers
  Exceptional managers have that "special something" that sets them apart from the crowd. It's not as mysterious as it sounds. Most of the time, that "special something" is the sheer determination to maintain positive habits of success. Do you want to join the ranks of highly effective managers? You can start with these seven proven career-boosters.
  1. Increase Your Self-Discipline
     If you are like most people, you find it easy to do bang-up job when you are in high spirits. The real test comes when you are not feeling motivated or particularly energetic. Are these good enough reasons to snap at customers or behave like a nasty martyr at work? No! As manager, like it or not, you are a role model. You set the standard when it comes to personal behavior, so make sure that standard is high. A moment of impulsiveness can tear down years of hard work when it comes to your career and reputation. According to Daniel Goleman, author of Working With Emotional Intelligence (Hardcover) (Paperback) (Audio Cassettes, Abridged), self-control reveals itself in the absence of emotional fireworks.
  2. Show Consistent Kindness
     Good managers don't throw their weight around or rely on intimidation to get results. Any job--especially management positions--involves the support and assistance of others. You can't perform effectively as a one-man band. It is foolish to burn bridges and alienate co-workers. And, whether you need them or not, treating others poorly will affect your own self-esteem. Can you feel good about yourself if you are upsetting or neglecting others? If you don't feel good about yourself, how effective can you be? One impressive manager, Rita, was aware of the power of this habit. Rita always made it a point to say "good morning" to the clerical staff. Her department was large, but this did not deter her from interacting with everyone. She would arrive at the office early every morning to chat with the file clerks and receptionist. Talk about a feeling of respect! Rita knew that many of these "lower level" employees were the first (and sometimes only) ones with whom a potential customer would interact. The more encouragement and esteem they felt, the more pride they would take in their day-to-day duties.
  3. Stretch Goals
     Without goals that are clear in your mind--goals to which you are firmly committed--your career plan is tragically flawed. Working at a frenzied pace does not amount to much if you don't have a clear vision of the end result you are striving to achieve. High-impact managers must take goal-setting seriously. Your staff expects it, and studies show that the majority of managers fall short in this area. A recent survey polled 7,800 workers, and more than half of them (58 percent) believe that management does a poor job setting goals. How can you avoid this? Write your personal goals and work area goals down. Place them in a visible area so that you--and others--can be reminded of them daily. Writing goals down greatly elevates the likelihood they will be met, but only 5 percent of employees have actually developed this habit.
  4. Welcome Criticism
     Criticism may sting, but you must embrace feedback and not avoid it. After all, how else will you know what to improve upon? Don't fool yourself into thinking other opinions don't matter. In the business world, your credibility and reputation play a key role in how far--and how quickly--you move ahead. Soliciting input from others always leaves you with a clearer view of your blind spots. Becoming defensive and hostile when faced with constructive criticism will insulate you from the truth and greatly limit your potential. Have you asked your employees what you could be doing better? You might be surprised at how revealing their answers will be. Are you worried that they won't be candid with you? Ask your questions in a non-threatening manner. This tactic is safe, constructive, and much better than bluntly asking, "what am I doing wrong?"
  5. Be a Solution-Finder, Not a Problem-Identifier
     It takes no particular talent to find fault, but many behave as though their "gift" must be shared again and again. You may know people at work who constantly nit-pick about company decisions. These professional problem-finders generally get stuck mid-way up the career ladder. Choosing to criticize or blame your superiors for their decisions shows great disloyalty and sets a lousy example for your staff. You have a duty to stand behind the powers that be, regardless of whether or not you agree whole-heartedly with their decisions. Do you have to suffer in silence when you disagree vehemently with something at work? Not at all. You can develop the habit of criticizing positively by recommending a better solution.
  6. Show Boundless Enthusiasm
     Enthusiasm is contagious. Successful managers realize the effect their attitude has on their mood and productivity. Constantly whining and complaining depletes valuable resources of energy. Can you afford it? The same situation, when presented to positive and negative personalities, will be perceived differently. An optimist looks forward to change and solves tough problems with enthusiasm. Good things seem to routinely come their way! Employees will absorb your energy if you show a passion for your work. In fact, many will mold themselves after you in terms of their energy level and general optimism. If you refuse to show enthusiasm, don't be surprised when you find yourself leading a lethargic, apathetic team.
  7. Embrace Those Opportunities
     Great opportunities are often disguised in work clothes. Do you use weaknesses within the organization as avenues to show your skill and leadership? Are you like so many other managers, content to sit back and wait for opportunities to appear on a silver platter? You could wait forever. Instead of waiting for "them" to take care of it, get busy, show some initiative, and take a risk. Organizations change when managers seize opportunities with boldness and confidence--and encourage their staff to follow suit. Developing successful habits isn't easy. Like anything worthwhile, it takes commitment and conviction. If these habits were simple, every single manager would have already put them into practice, and that's just not the case. Are you ready?
• Drawing lessons from Captain Jean-Luc Picard, U.S.S. Enterprise in the book Make It So: Leadership Lessons from Star Trek: The Next Generation by Wess Roberts and Bill Ross
  1. It is every officer's duty to freely exchange his knowledge, not by way of expressing intellectual superiority, but as a means by which one helps others solve problems and improve decisions.
  2. To be an effective communicator, you do not always have to agree with other people. However, it is important that you tolerate your differences with them.
  3. An officer who is routinely true to himself and others is one who can be trusted and relied upon in a crisis situation. This is also true of other members of the crew.
  Bringing out the best in competent people. Picard's nine leadership qualities:
  • Focus: "If you first focus your effort on matters of the highest concern . . . you will set free . . . your crew's and your own initiative, power, innovation and imagination."
  • Urgency: "If you engage each mission . . . with a sense of urgency, you will attain many marvelous accomplishments."
  • Initiative: "It has often been the crew's initiative that has made a difference in the success and safety of our missions. When you are asked for approval of an action, you should find every reason to respond with 'permission granted.'"
  • Competence: "Becoming a competent officer should be your top priority (when beginning a career)."
  • Communication: "you can never become an effective leader without being understood or without understanding those upon whom you rely."
  • Politics: (To be fought.) "Everyone pays a price for those who would create distrust."
  • Intellectual honesty: "One must not only act with integrity of word and deed, but of idea and principle."
  • Interdependence: "The cooperative, collaborative and corroborative effort of the entire crew (leads to) mission success."
  • Resilience: "An officer must retain a sense of hope -- trusting in his own ability and in the competence of other to stand firm."
• Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (from Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
  Some good books on marketing:
  1. My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising Claude C Hopkins
  2. What's the Big Idea?: How to Win With Outrageous Ideas (That Sell!)
  3. How to Write a Good Advertisement
  4. All Consumers Are Not Created Equal: The Differential Marketing Strategy for Brand Loyalty and Profits
  5. Beyond 2000: The Future of Direct Marketing
  6. Building a Mail Order Business: A Complete Manual for Success
  7. Commonsense Direct Marketing
  8. The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook: A Step-By-Step Guide to Organizing and Managing a Successful Direct Marketing Program
  9. Creative Direct Mail Design: The Guide and Showcase
  10. Database Marketing: The Ultimate Marketing Tool
  11. Desktop Direct Marketing: How to Use Up-To-The-Minute Technologies to Find and Reach New Customers
  12. Direct Hit Marketing: How to Make Direct Marketing Work
  13. Direct Mail Marketing Design
  14. Direct Marketing: Strategy, Planning, Execution
  15. Direct Marketing Rules of Thumb: 1,000 Practical & Profitable Ideas to Help You Improve Response, Save Money, & Increase Efficiency in Your Direct Marketing
  16. Direct Marketing Success: What Works and Why
  17. Direct Marketing Success Stories: ...and the Strategies That Built the Businesses
  18. Tested Advertising Methods (Business Classics Series)
• Aspects of leadership include: initiative, urgency, intellectual honesty, communication, and delegation skills which includes developing good people who will come up with ideas and be able to implement them.
• If the unemployment rate is 8%, then the employment rate is 92%. So you have a 92% chance of being employed. On the other hand, you have an 8% chance of being unemployed. So...
• Maintain your value in the marketplace, not just in your own company, by knowing where your group/division, company and your industry is headed at all times.
• Be proactive in your career management, not reactive.
• Search for jobs that value your highest level of experience, skills, education.
• You are a valuable product/service/resource so market yourself and close the sale.
• Learn a potential employer's system for hiring.
• Even if you are feeling desperate, do not compromise!
• The 3 most important rules in a job search: follow-up, follow-up, follow-up!
• A follow-up letter to an interview should make the following points clear:
  1. that you listened and paid attention to what was said and who said it (get each person's name correctly spelled)
  2. that you recognized and understood the importance of it, complement them
  3. that you are excited about it, confident you can do it and enthusiastically want it -- ask for the job
  4. that you are impressed with the people/product/etc. and can contribute to the initial efforts, meet the challenge
  5. that you have an attitude of gratitude (Which will get you far with people.)
• Traits to Dramatize in an Interview
  • Confidence
  • Dedication
  • Desire
  • Determination
  • Efficiency
  • Integrity
  • Motivation
  • Reliability
  • Willingness
  Skills to Dramatize in an Interview
  • Analytical
  • Communication
  • Interpersonal
  • Learning
  • Listening
  Achievements to Dramatize in an Interview
  • Money Saved
  • Time Saved
  • Money Earned
• Interview bloopers: failure to listen, answering unasked question, giving unwanted information, and being unprepared
• The following was transcribed and paraphrased from Sell Your Way To The Top an audio tape version of the book by Zig Ziglar
  Last little example on selling. Everything comes down to selling. Closing is important. You're looking for a job. They ask the question, "What is your experience." You answer, "22 years as an engineer but none in this department." Your chances are greatly diminished. But if you can look them in the eye and honestly say, "I have 22 years experience:
  • of being on time every day
  • of honest effort every time
  • of telling the truth
  • of knowing that my job depends on the profitability of your company and so I've learned to work in such a way as to do just that
  • of getting along well with those I work with
  • of having a winning attitude
  • of learning and I'm a good student.
    That's the kind of experience you need in your company. I can start immediately or would next week work into your plans better."
    I believe, with the right words and above all being the right person you can close more sales.
  - for more great stuff, including what he means by "being the right person", read Ziglar on Selling: The Ultimate Handbook for the Complete Sales Professional of the Nineties by Zig Ziglar
• 10 tips
  1. Do your homework at home -- office hours are for customers
  2. Never say NO to customer -- negotiate
     And remember that a customer is not just the outside customer, it is also the inside customer: another department, division or sometimes even a co-worker.
  3. Make customers feel good about you, not just your product -- get to know the customer
  4. Meet or exceed customer requirements -- even if it means going up against your own company's policies
  5. Do extra things for customers -- go the extra mile, even if you don't get paid for it
     example: We ran out of bottled water for the water cooler and called up the company. They said they would bring water out on the regularly scheduled day, in 3 days. We called another company and they said they would deliver the next day, so we switched companies. If someone had just offered to bring out a few bottles to hold us until the regular delivery day we would have been happy and touted them highly, instead they lost our business.
  6. Know competitors products -- better than they do
  7. Be early for meetings -- internal & external
  8. Dress & groom sharply -- so you look like a superior product, not just your product
  9. Make just one more call, do one more thing -- before you go home at the end of the day
  10. If you don't feel like going to work -- look for a new job
• Preparation is the key to success.
• If you plan to succeed -- you must plan.
• You need not plan to fail, it takes no effort.
• A winning attitude is active and positive.
• A Good Job Description
  • Expect Respect
  • Give Respect
  • Work Wholeheartedly
  • Treat Others as You Would be Treated
  • Do What is Right
  • Be an Influence for Good
  • Make your Work Meaningful by bringing meaning to your Work.
• One of the most important questions a manager can ever ask is: "Do I have capacity to lead?" Here is a quiz for leadership potential:
  1. Is change temporary or ongoing? Do you like change?
  2. Do you depend on systems and rules or do you depend on people and ideas?
  3. Do you require closure and short-term goals or can you leave things open and long-term?
  4. Are you more comfortable when rewarded for what you do or what you accomplish (i.e. effort or result, respectively)?
• Leaders see change as an ongoing condition, depend on people and ideas, view long-term goals as flexible, and like accomplishments and results.

  ---

  Great Quotes

  "Live now. Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again." - Captain Jean-Luc Picard, U.S.S. Enterprise

  "There is only one way under high heaven to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it." - Dale Carnegie

  "If you ever live in a country run by a committee, be on the committee" - Lao Tzu

  "Because that's where the money is." - Willie Sutton, when asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, aka Sutton's Law

  "Before you build a better mousetrap, it helps to know if there are any mice out there." - Mortimer B. Zucherman

  "Do not kick down the ladder by which you climbed." - C. H. Spungeon

  "Never give an order that can't be obeyed." - General Douglas MacArthur

  "Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you." - Lao Tzu

  "Don't equate activity with efficiency." - Harvey Mackey

  "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining." - J. F. K.

  "Leadership is action, not position" - Donald H. McGammon

  "The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order" - Alfred North Whitehead

  "Do you have any junior leaders in your organization? Reward them by sending them to work with your best people and they will reward you with more leaders." - Jack Falvey

  "Do or do not; there is no try." - Yoda

  "The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones." - John Maynard Keynes

  "Life consists of what man is thinking of all day." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  "We need to live by standards not by comparisons." - The Book

  "In all things in Nature there is something marvelous." - Aristotle

  "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." - Harlan Ellison

  "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it." - Goethe

  "The task of an educator should be to irrigate the desert not clear the forest." - ??

  "I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it." - Voltaire

  "Without Joy, there is no Strength. Without Strength, all other virtues are worthless." - Edward Abbey

  "I don't believe in a risk free society, where the thrills of living are traded for the safety of existence." - Nick Ienatsch

  "Duct tape is a lot like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds all the pieces of the universe together." - Source Unknown

  "Never let what you can't do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden

  "For lack of TRAINING, they had little KNOWLEDGE; for lack of KNOWLEDGE, they had little SKILL; for lack of SKILL, they had little CONFIDENCE; for lack of CONFIDENCE, they had little VICTORY." - Julius Caesar

  "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso

  "" -

For a change of Place . . .

What If Dr. Seuss Did Technical Training Manuals?
Here's an easy game to play.
Here's an easy thing to say:
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash!
You can't say this?
What a shame sir!
We'll find you
Another game sir.
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang!
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risc,
Then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM.
Quickly turn off the computer and be sure to tell your mom!
-- Author presently unknown, but apparently out in Kansas City...