Forget a Mentor?

Sylvia Ann Hewlett has kindly posed the question about the critical role that mentors play in our life right on the cover page of her book. OK, it's in brackets and shaded, but it's there. The key area she focuses on is, of course, sponsorship and tactics to land and leverage a powerful sponsor. But is the era of mentoring over?

Mrs. Hewlett argues that careers depend on sponsors, and surrounding oneself with mentors, who give advice and groom you but don't have the power over your promotions or plum assignments, is a losing strategy. She does point out the benefits of mentoring, while writing it off as an asymmetrical, one-way type of relationship, where the energy and benefits flow only towards the mentee. Sponsorship, says Hewlett, is a balanced relationship where the "protégée" pays back with loyalty and stellar performance. I wish to settle somewhere in the middle. The idea of seeking someone mighty to advance one's career means that you actually care about your career more than your own development. The book is full of real stories and practical advice --- my only question is what's the key audience.

My biggest frustration with the book was that I cannot buy x number of copies of "Forget a Mentor. Find a Sponsor" and bring it to a general training on personal branding, career management or organizational behavior. It's too heavily skewed towards women, and I am afraid it won't talk to men. It does include a few stories about men, racial and LGBT minorities, but it more feels like cole slaw next to a burger: you haven't asked for it, but look - there it is. On the other hand, next time I am organizing a female issues event, I am definitely using it as a resource: easy-to-read, actual, witty, lots of reflection questions and tools. But back to the matter of mentoring.

I was lucky to have a few really great mentors in my life. I was not looking for them - it sort of happened naturally. That's the best - when mentors come into your life when you need them and leave when the relationship is organically over. My first serious mentor was a social affairs officer at the regional administration office; a woman who knew how to leverage relationships, had an extensive network of outrageously useful contacts, loved guitar ballads over a camp fire and took an interest in my development. There was very little I could offer in return - we did not even work for the same organizations: actually, I was a student. What I could offer was my personality and enthusiasm.

While working at Shell, I got my first official mentor. It was sort of match-making: one day my big VP boss came to me and said that she'd found me a great mentor: a business development director, in charge of joint venture relations at the time. A jovial guy, he told me a lot about the business side of what we were doing, but the relationship never developed: we were too different and there was little that bound us together.

My personal relations with my mentors made me squint when I read "Forget the Mentor" in the title. The author says that affinity is not really required in your sponsorship relations. Then it starts feeling a bit too manipulative and calculative for my liking. Maybe it's just me not being so career-oriented. Or me having had sponsors who were my mentors at the same time? I have to agree that corporate-sponsored mentoring programs don't work but natural mentors have your best interests in mind and can bat for you when needed. Isn't that what we should be striving for?

Resume: a nice-to-read book, I stick to my opinion of the value of natural mentors that I would prefer to the over-engineered tactics of landing a sponsor. Some good ideas on personal branding, and a really nice collection of personal career stories. Not something I would re-read, but might be good to jot down a few key ideas and questions. For instance, the personal brand questionnaire - have a go at it!

• How am I innately different from my peers?
• What about my background, experience, or schooling makes me unique?
• What do I do exceptionally well? In what skill sets do I have the black belt?
• What is my currency? What skill sets do I have that set me apart?
• What experiences distinguish me?
• How does my perspective differ from that of others? What informs my perspective that does not inform theirs?
• What approach do I bring to solving thorny problems? How might this approach distinguish me from my peers?
• What accomplishment has given me joy and won me accolades? What gives me satisfaction so that I want to do more of it?

The Shift: Take the Reins of Your Career

The companies are fighting an uphill battle at getting employees in when they are most needed (Just-In-Time Hiring) and keeping them motivated and engaged:

A global Gallup survey found that at the average big firm only 33% of employees describe themselves as fully engaged in their work, 49% say they are not engaged and 18% say they are “actively disengaged”.

Yet, I am not totally convinced that it is solely the organization that should bear the burden of fostering engagement. The employees are just as responsible for making their jobs exciting and meaningful.

Last month The Economist published a special report My Big Fat Career where the key ideas are

• The workplace is changing; information on employers and employees is balancing off; and you need to learn how to play the information battles

• Invest in your own development

• Stick with the right people

No question about this: workers have to take responsibility for their own future. For many the mantra will be "continuous learning, continuous learning, continuous learning". However, educational institutions from nursery schools up to universities are doing a poor job at instilling the idea of life-long learning. Most educational systems are built on two theories:

• The Pickle Theory: a cucumber put in marinade has no other choice but to pickle, and
• The Squirrel Theory: you should get your mushrooms and nuts now (get the knowledge!), maybe you will need in later in winter (when the crisis comes).

 So how do we prepare ourselves? If nobody really cares about our long-term career success either because of ignorance, powerlessness or lack of interest, it is you personally against the dragons. Fortunately, there are many who would help - help is often given to those who seek and those who deserve.

There is one thinker, author, professor and inspirational speaker that I would like to mention in this regard. In her book “The Shift: The Future of Work is Already Here”  Lynda Gratton of the London Business School talks about the changes that we need to make in ourselves to create value-add jobs that we will enjoy.

According to Ms Gratton, people will also have to invest more in their personal “social capital”, which will involve three elements:

1. First, build yourself a “posse”, a small group of up to 15 people they can turn to when the going gets rough. They should have some expertise in common, have built up trust in each other and be able to work effectively together.

2. Second, you need a “big-ideas crowd” who can keep you mentally fresh. This echoes the discussion of “managed serendipity” in last year’s business bestseller, “The Power of Pull”, in which John Hagel and John Seely Brown argued that the successful worker of the future will live in clusters of talented, open-minded people and spend a lot of time going to thought-provoking conferences.

3. Third, you need a “regenerative community” to maintain your emotional capital, meaning family and friends in the real world “with whom you laugh, share a meal, tell stories and relax”.

Listen to Lynda talking about her new book and get inspired. Stop whining a-la "they don't appreciate me" and start paving your own road to happiness.

Increase Social Media Visibility to Get a Job

Some researchers claim that 95% of people engage in soft job search techniques at least once a year. "Soft search" means updating your resume, browsing LinkedIn or Glassdoor, as opposed to "hard search", which involves active contacting of recruiters and going to interviews. In either case, you would want to be visible of the labor market, unless you deal in things that criminal or tax authorities would be keen to investigate.

For the last couple of years we grew accustomed to three accounts that were organizing the communication streams of our lives:

• Facebook - to make sure that our friends tag us in most unseemly postures and situations;
• LinkedIn - to maintain contacts in the work space, and
• Twitter - to link the two together and KISS (Keeping It Short and Simple).

Recently the humanity has acquired Google+ as well, but so far I do not see a lot of activity there, but definitely there is lots of potential there, given that the search capabilities are much greater than those of the competitors.

A lot of my friends have accounts in all of those social networks but rarely use them. This is most unfortunate, because search algorithms love recent activity, links and powerful search phrases. Hence, the least you can do to stay afloat and visible in the job market is to follow these simple recommendations on various social engines:

Facebook	5 Facebook Tips to Increase Your Visibility
Twitter	General tips: 6 Ways to Increase Your Visibility on Twitter Twitter Hash Tags: Using Twitter Hash Tags to Boost Your Visibility and Credibility Twitter Lists: 11 Ways to Use Twitter Lists to Increase Brand Visibility
LinkedIn	5 Simple Steps for Improving Your LinkedIn Visibility
Google+	Google+ People Search. Improve Your Visibility.

And here are a couple of articles specifically about job hunting through social media:

• How To Use Social Media in Your Job Search

• Top 10 Social Sites for Finding a Job

Good luck!

Unique Tips For Helping Executive Recruiters Find Your Resume

Not sure about "uniqueness" of these tips, but I agree that it's what you should be doing to increase your virtual presence. Remember that Google loves new information, updates and links. I really can only speak from my own experience, but a year ago the Internet knew nothing about Sergey Gorbatov (as me, because there are many more Sergey Gorbatov's out there), and now if you google my name... well, my LinkedIn profile comes up first - Sergey Gorbatov - España | LinkedIn.

***********

Unique Tips For Helping Executive Recruiters Find Your Resume

Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 04:38PM by The SearchLogix Group in Changing Careers, Executive Recruiters, For Your Information, Job Search Strategies, Resume & Interview Tips | Post a Comment

With more people than ever vying for the same executive job opportunities, it’s important that you take every unique step possible to make sure that recruiters can find your resume among the many others out there. But how exactly can you get this done?

Here are some tips to make sure to help your resume stand out among the rest.

Make LinkedIn Your Friend

It’s hard to over-stress just how great a tool LinkedIn is for those who are pursuing opportunities in the professional realm. As an executive, it works well in a number of ways.

First, it allows you to connect with individuals within your professional networking online, which is always great. Then you can connect with individuals who are connected to their professional networks to create more opportunities for yourself.

Also, because the site allows you to garner and give recommendations, you can build up your references right on the site.

But what’s best for you in regards to helping recruiters find your page is the ability to build your resume and add links to any websites or blogs you have. By making yourself findable on this great site, you give yourself access to thousands of recruiters looking for the next great executive, so why not take advantage?

Build a Blog

Another great way to make yourself findable by recruiters, especially those in your field, is to create a blog that reflects your professional interests. Many bloggers draw in huge audiences by not only offering great advice for those interested in the topics the author is blogging about, but also by creating edgy and catchy topics that can stir up good discussions.

As a blogger, you can really focus on any aspect of the field you’d prefer. However, it’s good to keep two rules of thumb in mind while doing so. One, you want to make sure that you really know what you’re talking about when coming up with discussions so that follow-up in the comments section will be easy.

And two, it’s good to come up with ideas or topics of discussion that no one else is talking about. Of course, this can be pretty difficult with all of the topics that get discussed on the Internet. But even if you’re able to find a regular topic and put a new or funny spin on it, you will find that many readers will be excited about coming to your site for the reads they don’t get anywhere else.

Just Put Yourself Out There

Probably the most important aspect of making yourself findable by recruiters is taking advantage of the Internet as a whole, whether you’re using LinkedIn, creating your own blog (which are easily obtainable via email, by the way), or just making yourself easy to find on Google. The more you put yourself out there on the Internet, the greater your chances will be of getting found by recruiters.

Your best bet is to avoid taking the Internet for granted right now since so many recruiters make it their home. By sitting yourself in the center of the action, you’re bound to place yourself in the right place to find the next position of your dreams.

By Heather Eagar

Reputation control

Control Your Reputation Online

We know that whatever we do online, we leave traces. Some of those may be quite innocent, others might dampen your reputation, particularly if you hold a senior position with lots of publicity.We talked about such tools as Sucicide Machine a few months ago (http://hrboutique.blogspot.com/2010/09/more-electronic-resources-for-landing.html), and those are instances when it's up to you what appears on the web regarding your persona. Today's blog is about tracking other people's activity, if they mention anything able to affect your public image.

There are many free internet tool helping you to measure your activities in forums, blogs and social netwroks. Below are just a few of those. All of these will help you find out if you have been "naughty" or "nice" online and map out the strategy to rectify or reinforce what you have been doing:

• Google Alerts. After registering, you'll be getting an e-mail every time there is a comment published mentioning your name or brand.
• Twilert. The Twitter alert search will help you know instantly what is being said about your brand or whatever topics you might be interested in that network.
• Google Real Time and Social Mention. These two search engines have the advantage of providing you with real time information and are designed to filter the contents, which is published in social networks.
• Brandfo. It is the free service that monitors and provides information about what is being said about your brand or company, on the Net.
• ReputacionXL. Functions like Google Alerts: sends information to your e-mail.
• Whostalkin and SamePoint, Backtype and HowSociable. Four webservices specializing in searching for conversations about topics and brands in blogs and social networks.
• Xopie. It is another opinion search engine, but in this case those are delivered to you via a feeds reader (RSS).

don't get COMMODITIZED

I take my hat off to those who created Voss, sell it and, what is more, to those who buy it.


Really --- my heart filled with awe, I totally, truly and genuinely amazed at professionals who deal with branded commodities or with the art (magic?) of making a purse out of a saw's ear. Well, the metaphor is not 100% correct: there is some degree of transformation involved in the act, but what happens to the water in a Voss bottle we don't know and hope that nothing happens at all and it arrives on our tables in its pristine condition.

The beauty behind branded commodities is that with minimum of effort and cost you are all of a sudden able to charge next-to-premium prices, basically for a bit of wrapping paper and a beautiful story behind it. One of the ways to escape from commodity hell.

When you step out into the labor market, you are nothing else but a product as well. As any product, there is some/much marketing effort needed and most marketing concepts apply. Hence, as any product, you have a price tag and value, which is, to a large extent,a perception of you by your own self and other labor market players. Tweaking the basic concepts just a little bit, we can place ourselves onto the following diagram:

Nobody wants to be priced low. Every ambitious person or at least those who do not have issues with personal self-esteem, want to be positioned in Quadrants 1 and 2, i.e. being a luxury product or a branded commodity. We know that big companies get thousands of solicited applications for a single position, so getting a distinguished personal brand is nowadays synonimous with self-preservation and survival in the long run.

Sometimes I get a feeling that all these talks about personal brandings is merely a fad, created by image experts in a despearte outcry for money, but the reality is that nobody wants to be a commodity, fad or no fad. We comb our hair even if we do not plan to leave home and we do other things just to feel good regardless whether others are going to notice or not. Thus, I guess we are running out of excuses to invest in ourselves and add a couple of zeroes to that price tag we are all wearing.

Leadership Story

Going for an interview, the most difficult question might turn out to be, "How did you get here?" - and it will not be about the mode of tranport you favored that day to get to the venue. It will be about you life map, or what have you done to be at this particular stage of your career. Another difficult question (as well as a famous namesake book) is "Why should anyone be led by you?" Think for yourself, how would you answer those?

We were asked to do someting similar in the Strategic Communication class a few weeks ago. I should say that we were lucky to have a highly entertaining and deeply knowledgeable professors Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer, authors of Thinkers 50, which is a research on business thought gurus, most likely to influence the development of the business reality as we know it.

The task was to write a personal leadership story in less 250 words, which should be a distilled message to the world of your own persona. I should say it is so much easier talking at length about yourself, but when you are confined to mere 250 words, it is a mission impossible. Next, it brings you back to the same old questions: Why should anyone be led by you?

I am posting here what I wrote and submitted as my final project to the professors. Really keen on feedback!

*******************

Sergey Gorbatov

Personal Story
Strategic Communication
December 7, 2010

My most respected high school teacher told me shortly before I graduated, “Sergey, if you want to achieve something in this life, you need to be the first, the best, or different”. I did not grasp the full value of that advice at the time, but I heeded it nonetheless. Looking back (and most importantly – looking forward), I see with clarity why I am where I am and how I got here: by being the first, the best or different.

There are few things I have been the best at. Well, in relative terms, I did gain a considerable number of awards and on a number of occasions I had to blush in front of an audience receiving an accolade or praise. Being the first gained me the reputation of an innovative first-moving go-getter. However, what truly advanced me in life is being different.

A distinct way of clothing, an atypical career path, a very special circle of friends, and many other uncommon aspects, granted me that edge I could use to stand out. Yet, it has always been a unique way to look at the world, a peculiar manner of thinking and seeing the connections that elude others that have prevented me from blending with the background or getting lost in the crowd.

I bow with utmost respect to that teacher for her invaluable lesson. It is ambitiously pleasing to be the first. It is painstakingly rewarding to be the best. It is ostentatiously crucial to be different.

Blogging

Everybody blogs nowadays. Really, having your personal or professional blog is considered comme il faut in the learned circles and not running one is looked down upon and is deemed something of a faut pas. At the end of last year the number of blogs on the net has reached an unfathomable figure of 126 million. So why is it so popular?

I believe we can identify the following reasons why one might start and run a blog (these are obviously not mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustible, but a good start, in my opinion):

• you are bored and stuck in a job you don't enjoy, so is there a better way to while away your time than pouring out your negative emotions and frustrations to the anonymous, unsuspecting and all accepting Internet audience?
• you have to do it. If you are a student and your Information Systems professor makes it a requirement to pass a class - tough for you. If you must lead a blog at work because your boss tells you so - well, at least you get paid. Quality will suffer, relationships will sour and your creative muse will take a break, but hey - life's not a tray of cupcakes in general.
• you are not sure why you are doing it, but everyone around has one, so why not? Nobody has erased the herd instinct from the list of human motivators and believe me - it's powerful.
• you consider it is a good idea to promote yourself in the virtual world and your blog is a part of your personal brand.
• you are used to having a diary, it is a way to organize your thoughts and a blog is just a different format of what you used to do anyway.
• you want to practice your writing and story-telling skills. Blogging is a playground and a jumpboard for something bigger later.
• your blog is a form of public accountability. Once you commit something to the internet community, it will be more difficult for you to slack. Think about the 365-day blog that Julie had in that marvelous movie Julie & Julia.
• you run a business and you want to gain direct contact with your customers. In addition to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, blogging is a powerful tool of reaching out to thousands of people instantaneously. 
• no publishing house will take your masterpieces for mass reproduction, and blogging is free and reaches the audience instantly. This is a perfect retreat for unrecognized writers, poets and paper-wasters.
• you genuinely like writing and you have a lot to convey to the world. Your contributions are valued and you have followers who regularly check up on the most recent posts. Proliferous bloggers get attention and traffic, generating even more interest to their persona that way.

Why do you (would you) have a blog? What reasons are missing in my list?

Ambassador'ing the Employer Brand

Do you teach your employees how to handle visitors? Most likely, you would be focusing on security issues, like not letting them in without a valid pass, or insisting on accompanying them wherever they go, and so on. However, (just like the theater begins with a cloakroom) you company begins with the first encounter. Trust me, it does now matter, whether the first person a visitor will meet is a janitor of a vice president --- the first impression is always the most lasting.

It is particularly important now, when the war for talent is becoming more and more rampant. When I worked for Shell in Moscow, we used to have an HR Marketing Analyst, who was responsible for promoting HR as a function internally withing the company and the Shell brand as an employer outside. Now this gives a totally new perspective not only to the human resources management profession, but also sends out a distinct message how much the company is concerned about its employees and the image it projects into the wider community.

The following video is a good illustration of the concept that EVERYONE is an ambassador of a brand one way or another. How do we embrace this idea and how we act upon it might be the ultimate competitive advantage.

Personal Brand

Jennifer Aaker started this whole hoo-haa with personal branding and nowadays you are kind of perceived as a loser if you don't talk about it, either supporting or condemning. Why is it so important to be branded? We are not cows or sheep and what are the chances of us being merged with the crowd - we are unique and brilliant each in his own way.

The experts choose to differ. Lynda Gratton in her book Glow is talking about a signature. Times of best practices is over since a best practice can be replicated, but try to counterfeit someone's signature - potentially might be a huge problem. She puts it into the context of "glowing," a term she coined to indicate someone or something radiating an enormous amount of energy, which draws people to you (together with money, love, luck and lots of greedy relatives). People who do not glow end up in the areas of permanent frost and freeze to social death.

Dave Ulrich in one of his latest books Leadership Code is exploring the concept of a Leadership Brand. The following video fully covers the basic ideas (it's 12 minutes long, but trust me - it's worth it):


When so many smart people talk about the necessity of having a personal brand in one voice and all over the place, it is worthwhile to give it some thought:

• what sets you aside from the rest of the crowd?
• why is it difficult for others to be what you are?
• how do you communicate your personal brand?

In conclusion, a short Pepsi commercial edifying the idea of when a personal brand can go TERRIBLY wrong. Look out for the punchline :)


Finally, if you got really interested in the idea of personal branding, you can find a lot of resources and information on this blog: http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/. Outrageously commercialized but still serves the purpose.