I've decided to tell you about two of my favorite business books written by women; they're highly entertaining and read like fiction.
Normal Gets You Nowhere Author: Kelly Cutrone You may remember Kelly Cutrone from reality TV shows like The Hills where she is portrayed more as a nutcase then a genius. Her book is painfully honest, practical, and hilarious. You'll be inspired by Cutrone's wisdom and bravery. Read it now.
Women, Work, & the Art of Savoir Faire Author: Mireille Guiliano Mireille Guiliano draws on her experience as former CEO of Veuve Cliquot (now LVMH) to provide great career and life advice - but in a more refined manner as compared to Kelly Cutrone. Guiliano has mastered the art of writing about herself; after reading the book you'll feel like you know her personally.
The working world can be a rough place. Today's economy requires you to think about your career as though it's a startup and you're the CEO. Yet many people I talk to are completely delusional. There are a number of things you can do to stay ahead of the game or at the very least, stay afloat. Help the Algorithms Creep You A new wave of recruitment technology, such as Entelo and TalentBin, designed to determine if you're a rockstar of your profession and predict when you will leave your job so that employers can reach out to you with the right opportunity at the right time. To do so, these sites are creeping your social media streams and creating composite profiles of you right now. Check out this Forbes article that explains the idea of talent-scouting algorithms in greater depth.
An alternate name for this post is "How to Recruit like a 1960's Jackass." It all started with LinkedIn. I received a message from an executive and read it a few times because I thought it was intended for someone else. To make this more fun, I took screenshots:
This article originally appeared on TalentEgg.ca,
Canada’s leading job board and online career resource for students and recent
graduates.
Navigating the world of resumes and cover letters is like trying to do an assignment without any guidelines from your professor. At school, expectations were always more clear cut. If you wrote an organized and well-researched paper, you’d get a decent – if not a great mark. Job hunting is a different story. Nothing has prepared you for the game of resumes and cover letters. When you don’t hear back from employers after applying, it’s hard to know what needs improvement. We recently completed a round of hiring at the company I work for and, based on my experience, I’d like to share some resume and cover letter tips that will help you land your next job interview. 1. Pretend you're on Twitter If your cover letter was a tweet, what would it say? Get right to the point. Lose the, “…I’m applying for the ABC position at EFG Corporation that was posted on the student careers website of University XYZ.” Writing this sentence on Twitter would be a total waste of characters; instead, your cover letter should start with your pitch: “I’d be a great fit for the ABC position because XYZ.” Stop saying that you have “strong analytical skills” and instead analyze the job description, and craft some very concise and compelling statements demonstrating why you should be interviewed. 2. Ditch the R2-D2 vibe Write a cover letter the way you would write a blog post – using a human voice. Read your cover letter out loud. Now read a post from your blog out loud. Notice a difference? Your cover letter is written in a robotic voice that you may think sounds professional. It’s not. You invite employers to check out your blog, yet they won’t click the link because they’ve already seen your writing via your cover letter and, let me tell you, they’re not impressed. Remove the words “strong communication skills” and “strong writing skills” from your application and just write a persuasive cover letter. Walk the walk. 3. Lose your laundry lists Why does your resume include laundry lists of each daily task you performed for all the jobs you’ve ever had? If you were a part-time receptionist while you were in university, anyone who looks at your resume will know that you answered the phone. What made you good at this job? How did you stand out? Recruitment experts rant about this resume problem all the time, yet it came up so often in the round of hiring we just did. According Andy Porter, HR executive and prominent recruitment blogger, candidates should always pitch themselves as accomplishers as opposed to doers. To land an interview, it’s important that employers see you as a the quarterback as opposed to the kid that gets picked last in schoolyard games. In other words, stop reducing yourself to a laundry list; you’re better than that! Your achievements are always more compelling. Make achievements the focal point of your resume and cover letter, and cut out the rest. 4. Stop the resume firing squad We all know the drill: modify a few resume buzzwords, change the company name and job title on your cover letter, and fire off multiple applications into cyberspace. Instead, opt for a quality-over-quantity approach by applying to a few positions very well. Standing out requires more time than you may be spending right now. The applications we received shortly after we announced a job posting were inferior to the ones which were sent after a few days. In the end, all of the applicants we interviewed took a bit more time to write something convincing. Photo Credit: "Angry Businessman Throwing Documents" by NejroN on iStockphoto
I recently gave a talk at a Power Hour Social put on by Girls in Tech Toronto. In sharing my story of career transition, I hoped to encourage others to challenge themselves and shake things up. I've been meaning to write a post about this topic for a very long time and I had a great time sharing my experiences with a live audience.
Adults can easily put their minds on autopilot, slipping into a Groundhog Day mindset, where each day is the same as the previous and there's nothing left to learn. Children, on the other hand, don't have this problem. It's easy for them garner a sense of enthusiasm and discovery because everything is so new. Needless to say, adults can learn a lot from preschoolers.
The next Girls in Tech Toronto event will take place on Tuesday November 27th at the Wave Accounting office. I will be speaking about making a career transition from Human Resources to the technology business. Click here to register. I hope to see you there!
Women, Work, & the Art of Savoir Faire
