Tag Archives: Career Advice

Xtreme HR Career Story Challenge

My friend Chris Ponder at XtremeHR is asking people to share their own career stories. I’ve talked about my HR career before, but I thought it would be fun to participate in his project as a showing of support for this great idea. The back story of the challenge. I was supposed to answer the questions he asked in several shorter videos, but after being snowed in this week and having all kinds of crazy stuff come my way, I just shot it in one long video (my longest ever). This is my career story thus far with more detail than you ever imagined. :-) At the very end I am on the verge of a coughing fit and you can barely understand me. Sorry ’bout that!

Email subscribers will have to click through to view the video.

This series was a lot of fun, and he will be doing something like this quarterly if you ever want to participate. Just in case you wanted to find them, here are the 3 sets of questions I answered.

What do you do on the first days at a new job?

My friend Stephen started a new job this week. His post about first impressions is a fun read and will transport you back to the first days on the job. Click over and read it (should only take a minute or two). He asked for some tips/advice on how to spend those first days, and I wanted to share a few of my own thoughts here.

I am proud of you, my friend! They are very lucky to have you on board. I’m in the exact same position as you. Our company is split between two main locations, and I’m trying to support both areas. If possible, plan a trip to the other locale and give them plenty of notice in advance so they can prepare questions for you. I had that opportunity after being here only a few weeks and it was a great opportunity to meet them and make them more comfortable with me.

Find out what your senior leaders believe in. Like Steve mentioned, find out what is best about their culture and commit yourself to that. I found out that our senior leaders firmly believe in our core values, and I now try to tie those into any project I’m working on so it will have their support.

On the flip side, find out what they like least, but like Lisa said, keep from “doing” anything about it until you have time to see the big picture. There will be plenty of time later to fix what’s broken. The thing to do now is find out what is broken and why it hasn’t been fixed before now. Is it because it’s too costly, takes too much time, is a pet project of an executive, etc.?

Two things I’ve taken to doing when I first start a job:

  • Immediately schedule a 1 month review with my manager and get it on the calendar.
  • Start a draft Word document and write down everything you do that takes more than a few minutes. At the end of the day/week/month, you will be amazed at the things you’ve done since starting, and it will help you when you sit down with your manager to see if you are focusing on what is important to them.

Anyone else have ideas for the first days on the job?

Helping an HR Student

Recently I got an email from someone looking for some information on early HR career type stuff. Thought it might be interesting for someone else out there as well.

Hello

My name is Jay, I’m a french economics student, I’m in second year in college.

I have a project to write about the job I want to do later in my life, and that’s working in human resources. I must ask questions to someone working in the sector and I’m wondering if you could answer some of my questions about your job ? By the way, if some of your blog posts answer my questions, please give me the links to them. And feel free to add anything that you find interesting, the more there is, the better :) Thanks in advance !

What and where did you study ? Did you have work experience during your studies ?
I have a degree in human resources management from Athens State University (a local college). I worked full time while I was in school and took classes at night. The job was not in HR, but I knew that’s where I wanted to be once I graduated.

Why did you chose to study/work in HR ? Continue reading →

Free Engagement Webinar, Metrics, Failure, and More

Whew! There are so many great resources I’d like to share today. Let’s jump right in.

Free employee engagement webinar

These events by Workforce.com are fantastic. They have multiple sessions throughout the day and you can even get HRCI recert credits for some of the sessions. Definitely worth checking out!

Make your age an afterthought in your career

Careers are built on ability, not on age. (best quote ever!)

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

  • What excites you? Why do you get up in the morning? If time and money were no object and you had no pressing responsibilities, how would you like to spend your days?
  • What bothers you? What problem would you like to fix? There are all kinds of problems in the world… which one(s) are you most troubled by?

If A’s hire B’s and B’s hire C’s, will A’s collect a pension?

The B\’s need to hire A\’s, and the A\’s need to hire A+\’s. Even old, wasting companies can thrive again if the leaders can just recognized that if they are better than their predecessors, isn\’t it likely that those following should be better? Then hire to get them in, and not just turn the keys over to your workplace sons and daughters, hand-picked because they remind you of you at that age…

The 3 most important HR metrics

First, I would say that the metrics that will make my top 3 list have to be those that demonstrate they measure impact and/or results for the organization. So, you won’t see metrics like these on my top 3 list…

Know of some other neat/helpful resources? Feel free to share in the comments below!

Perform Like a Rock Star (Book Review)

how to perform like a rockstarWith my affinity for using “rock” as a verb, you just know I would love reading the book Perform Like a Rock Star (and still have time for lunch) by Orna Drawas. Receiving this book from my friends at the Cadence Group couldn’t have happened at a better time, because my new HR job is requiring me to work smarter (and harder) than ever before. Where it fits, I added the page numbers below to help you find the good stuff.

Some of the highlights

  • CEOs rate the top two qualities they say will help someone advance in their career quickly as:
  • 1) the ability to separate the relevant from the irrelevant
  • 2) the ability to get the job done quickly
  • Don’t prioritize your schedule. Schedule time for your priorities. And make sure it’s during your golden hour.
  • Inbox zero (for your life)-Commit to using a list. Really using it. Anything that will take longer than two minutes to complete gets added onto the list. While it may seem urgent at the time, adding it to the list and then comparing priorities might shine the light on some false urgency. (p77) Continue reading →

Jobs in human resources management (My HR Career #3)

The two previous parts in this series dealt with HR careers and how to get a job in HR and human resource career opportunities. Today I will talk about my own move into a new human resources management job (yippee!). :-)

My time in my first HR job taught me a lot about what I do and don’t want to do in my career. I can still remember talking with Jennifer McClure back at SHRM10 this summer about moving into a job that was a good fit for me. Then, a few weeks ago, I was talking with Dawn Hrdlica about the exact same thing. Both of them gave me the same advice, and I was finally able to do what I really wanted. They said:

You have to know where you want to go with regard to your career. Otherwise the opportunity might pass you by before you realize you wanted it.

So I thought really, really hard about what I wanted to do next. Yeah, I could just leap at any open position that came up, but it wouldn’t really be what I wanted. I made a short list of things that were highly desired in my next job.

  1. Small company
  2. Generalist role
  3. Opportunities for growth/experimentation
  4. Great culture

A few weeks ago I found out about an HR position with a small local startup company (there’s #1!). I applied, but it was over my head in that the person would wear many hats and assume multiple roles (#2). I didn’t expect too much, but it was a job I’d love to have. I contacted the hiring manager and learned more about the position.  A big benefit of the job would be the opportunities (#3) it presented for growth and development. All I needed was the culture…

So, fast forward a few weeks, and I’m sitting there being interviewed by the president, vice president, and operations manager. We get down to the end of the interview, and I’m feeling really confident about the whole meeting. As a parting comment, I asked the president if there was one “must have” for the person who would take the position. He responded that the person had to fit into their culture well, because it was one of his highest priorities that they hire for culture fit (#4!). One of the coolest things about the interview was seeing the president scrolling through my blog while I spoke with the operations manager. :-)

A few short days later, I had an offer letter in hand and my resignation turned in at work. This thing was going to happen. On Monday, November 22nd, I start a new chapter in my career. I’ll be going to Pinnacle Solutions here in Huntsville, AL, and I am so thrilled about the possibilities ahead. I’m thankful to those who have helped me along the way and I can’t wait to see how much I learn and grow in this new position!

Other posts in the HR Careers series:

Human resource career opportunities (My HR career #2)

In a recent post I talked about HR careers and how to get a job in HR. Today I’ll cover career opportunities for those in human resource jobs, specifically how to create career growth opportunities from within your job.

How I grew my career opportunities

I’ll go ahead and admit it: my first HR job wasn’t super strenuous. Surprised? Probably not. Most people in their first HR roles usually end up filing papers (me), handling the dull/routine tasks that nobody else wants (me), and generally wasting their time and energy on things that an admin or temp could do (me again). I don’t want to sound ungrateful for the opportunity to move into the HR profession, but if you have someone with a degree in HR and some enthusiasm, but you’ve kept them in a filing/admin type job for over six months, you’re wasting their brains and hamstringing yourself. They won’t do it forever.

That lack of stress and responsibility left me feeling like my free time could be used in a better way. At that time I had already started blogging to share about my new job and what I was doing/learning, but I really threw myself into it. I started using Twitter and LinkedIn to build connections with other human resources professionals around the world.

I was able to grow a little in my day job, but it seemed like there weren’t many opportunities for growth/challenge. Without Allen (my mentor and best friend) guiding me, I’d have sunk into a slump months ago.

Even with a full time work schedule, I had time for a few activities in my spare time…

  • Interacted daily with VP/director level pros and thought leaders in my field
  • Cofounded an HR conference that drew attendees from around the world
  • Wrote an eBook targeted toward my industry’s certification exam
  • Created and solidified dozens of partnerships with other blogs and businesses
  • And most importantly, I established myself as an expert in my niche both locally and nationally

Yes, I have this whole world of stuff that I do outside my day job, but the full time gig is still what pays my bills and keeps my babies fed. And unless you’ve been briefed on my online (empire) activities, it just doesn’t sound very impressive to say, “I’m an HR blogger.” Eventually I came to the realization that the day job needed to keep up with the pace of the rest of my activities, and I started looking for another job.

Most of us have made some job changes in the past few years. You’ve heard my story. What prompted that change for you?

Other posts in the HR Careers series: