Land the Job You Love: Got a Job During the Workshop

This provides another insight about how to find a better paying job faster

Rosa attended The Career Workshop offered at a faith-based employment service. The first day of the 2-day workshop taught her how to convince employers to hire her.  The second day, workshop participants were told to visit two potential employers before returning to the 10:30 start time. Rosa returned at 10:40 and excitedly reported that one of the two companies she contacted offered her a job. She negotiated the exact salary she wanted.

Benefits of Attending Job Search Workshops

A lot of people reject the invitation to attend job search workshops because they want to get a job quickly. They mistakenly assume that they will waste time at the workshop. They fail to recognize that time spent improving their skills, or as Stephen R. Covey said Sharpening the Saw, saves time.

Attending a job search workshop improves your ability to find employment faster and with better pay. Good workshops not only teach principles but practice skills needed to find a job. These include how to:

• Find advertised and unadvertised job leads
• Network effectively with family, friends, and former colleagues
• Obtain referrals of people you can talk to from current contacts
• Gather information about the goals, projects, and culture of potential employers
• Say the right things in phone calls so that employers will let you into their offices
• Open and close interviews to make good first and last impressions
• Answer or ask interview questions impressively to make employers want to hire you
• Follow-up effectively after interviews so that companies want second interviews
• Negotiate salary, benefits, and other perks

Some workshops videotape participants’ interviews and give feedback to help them improve.

How to Find Workshops in Your Area

Some workshops are free. Others cost. You can find job search workshops through:

• Your state Department of Workforce Services or Job Service
• LDS Employment Resource Services (see www.LDSJobs.org)
• Catholic Charities
• Public libraries
• Local community colleges
• Google “job search workshop” and the name of your city

Wednesday we will analyze the impact of doubt and belief on finding a job

Enhance the Success of New Year’s Goals 7: Synergy

This concludes our series on how to transform New Year’s Resolutions into successful goals

My GoalsWork or mastermind team meets on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 4:30-6:00pm. Our team includes four business owners. We follow the agenda outlined below. Each of us have increased our income, our satisfaction, and our sense of accomplishment. One of us expanded a portion of the business with the potential to eclipse the rest of the business combined. He rekindled a dwindling enthusiasm. Another member survived the tough decision to close two retail locations who would never regain the profits of the past. Another member wrote and published 5 books.

Words of Walt on Synergy

Walt Disney believed in the synergy of teams to make magic. He said

• “I use the whole plant for ideas. If the janitor has a good idea, I’d use it”
• “I feel there is no door which, with the kind of talent we have in our organization (team), could not be opened.”
• “Togetherness, for me, means teamwork”
• “Everything here at Disneyland and the studio is a team effort.”

Agenda for Successful Teams

GoalsWork Teams pool the abilities of all the members into a synergy that exceeds the sum of their capabilities. No member may sacrifice their goals because they consider someone else’s deserve more merit.

Each member of the team must commit to

• Set goals and act to achieve them
• Sincerely acknowledge the ability and right of all members—including themselves—to succeed
• Respect and support all the other members of the team. 

The agenda is simple. Each member of the team:

• States the goal they are working on
• Reports on the action they outlined in the last meeting
• Asks for ideas and brainstorming on a challenge inhibiting success or new ideas
• Outlines 2-4 actions they plan on taking before the next meeting.

Regular synergy through GoalsWork Teams will ensure your success. New Year’s resolutions become goals you achieve . So, be very careful which goals you set, for you will achieve them.

Monday we begin a series outlining the 10x2=Hired model to find a better paying job quickly

Enhance the Success of New Year’s Goals 6: Limitations

This continues our series on turning New Year’s resolutions into goals and success

Joan decided to be a writer at 11. Her parents repeatedly said “You can’t do that!”. So, she worked for an advertising agency as scheduler—not copywriter. Eleven years  later she quit her job to write. She worked as a freelance production assistant on commercials 13 hours a month and moved rent-free into her parents cabin.

Every 3 months she called her coach and cried “I can’t do this!” The coached enquired how much she had written, how much money she earned doing commercials, and invited her to meet. She reported how many stories she wrote, that she had earned more money than at the agency, and chose not to meet.

Two years later, she finished writing, moved back into town, and worked for the same agency—writing copy. She had written 120 short stories and 2 books. She achieved her goal. She happily continues to write advertising copy. She never published, because her goal was writing not publishing.

3 Types of Limitations

You will encounter both intended and unwanted limitations. I suggest 3 categories:

• Intended limitations define your scope. For example, a goal to go on a Disney Cruise in the Caribbean intentionally limits you to a desired company and geography.
  • Intended limitations are good, make sure you include them
• Real limitations include lack of time, money, skills, disabilities, or other limitations.
  • Planning eliminates real limitations: working on the Disney Cruise to eliminate the cost, or taking online courses gains new skills.
• Windmills (illogical limitations) appear real but are not. Joan’s windmill came from her parents brainwashing her “You can’t do that”. She encountered the windmill every 3 months even though she was doing it quite successfully.
  • Windmills require illogical solutions because they are illogical. Joan had to remember that 1) she was writing and 2) she was earning enough money. She did not eliminate the windmill. She bypassed it every 3 months.

Coaches and your GoalsWork Team help you handle all three types of limitations.

Friday we will describe how GoalsWork (or Mastermind) teams ensure your success

Enhance the Success of Your New Year’s Goals 5: Act

This continues our series on how the GoalsWork Model will help you improve your career

Jennifer worked as secretary to a plant manager. She possessed a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management. She worked for the same company for six years: four while she got her degree and two since graduation. She informed management she earned her degree and waited for a promotion. None came.

She saw an opportunity to provide better human resource services, currently the responsibility of an overworked controller. She offered to help with a headquarters requested compensation comparison. She reached out to former classmates working in human resource. She submitted an excellent analysis. She started posting job ads and screening job applicants. She helped the control by distributing performance appraisal forms, training supervisors, processing completed forms,  and coordinating with headquarters HR to allocate salary increases. She regularly reported success to the plant manager, controller, and headquarters HR.

In fifteen months, the company promoted Jennifer to human resource generalist reporting to the controller. Within two years, they promoted Jennifer to human resource manager.

Words from Walt on Action

Walt Disney frequently commented on working and taking action. I don’t have space to list many:

• “People often ask me if I know the secret of success and if I could tell others how to make their dreams come true. My answer is, you do it by working”
• “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
• “Get a good idea, and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it’s done, and done right.”

The “A” in GoalsWork=Act

Jennifer had to act to get the promotion. You may learn from her actions. She

• Waited for a promotion and nothing happened
• Identified a need that she would enjoy filling
• Offered to help the controller—in addition to fulfilling her current responsibilities
• Focused on 2-4 things she could do and still keep the plant manager satisfied
• Reached out to others to mentor and help her

Follow this example to act on your goals.

Wednesday we examine how to solve the three kinds of limitations to your goal

Enhance the Success of Your New Year’s Goals 4: Others

This continues our series on how the GoalsWork model can help you improve your career

Susan set a goal to become a director of a major nonprofit organization that helped eliminate need and suffering in 150+ countries. She knew that she could not accomplish this without help from others. She identifies several mentors both within the organization and out. She built and maintained an excellent network of contacts and sought their advice and help. She also studied books, articles, and blogs about successful and failed charitable and humanitarian efforts. Listening to all of these other people and implementing their good advice—while learning from their failures—helped her achieve her goal. She now heads a global humanitarian effort in 150+ countries.

Words from Walt about How Others Help

Walt Disney accredited his success to working with others. He said:

• “You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world…but it requires people to make the dream a reality”
• “I don’t pose as an authority on anything at all, I follow the opinions of the ordinary people I meet, and I take pride in the close-knit teamwork with my organization.”
• “Everything here at Disneyland and the studio is a team effort”
• “I feel there is no door which, with the kind of talent we have in our organization, could not be opened”

Identifying the Elusive “Others”

You may think others will not help you. Would you be willing to help someone you like achieve their goal? If so, why doubt they will? Not everyone will help you, especially if they are competing for the same goal. You will find enough willing to help if you look.

I suggest you look in the following places:

• Books, articles, or blogs written by people who already achieved your goal
• Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections
• Mentors, networks, and associates within and outside your organization
• Professional associations, trade unions, seminars, or conferences
• Online user groups for common problems, software, or goals
• Successful goal-minded friends and family
• Websites like www.ChangeAnything.com

Monday we will analyze how 2-4 actions a month enhance success of your goal

Sources of Money for College You Do Not Have to Pay Back

I will share a variety of sources for money over the course of this blog

A father approached me after a meeting. He told me that he and two of his daughters had attended a scholarship workshop four years before. One daughter was a freshman in college, the other a sophomore in high school. He told me that the older would graduate that year and the younger one had just started college. He then gleefully reported that the only money he had to send any of them for college, since the workshop, had been in their Christmas cards as presents.

Various Sources to Find Money for College

You can find money to pay for college from hundreds of places. Each Tuesday, I will spotlight a different source. For now, I would like to lay a framework to help you categorize the sources I will share.

You may get several kinds of money to pay for college:

• Grants
  • Basic grants usually award money based on the economic need of the student and their family
  • Research grants provide funds to study academic areas of interest to the sponsors
• Scholarships typically reward someone for achievements, merit, membership, ethnic background, personality traits or other subject criteria
• Loans (direct, indirect, guaranteed or unguaranteed) give money with an expectation that the student or family will pay it back
• Educational Reimbursements involve employers reimbursing employees, after course completion and based on grades received, a portion of the tuition for courses they feel will make the student a better employee.
• Student Work Program reimburses colleges for tuition, housing, or more based on the student working at the school for what they receive
• Savings of the student themselves of family members possibly using a 529 student savings plan
• Working your way through college, while increasingly unpopular by both students and colleges, provides money for college and a resume of experience upon graduation
• Miscellaneous other financial aid including

 Where to Find Money

• Internet search engines
• School guidance counselors
• Books and other publications
• Community organizations

Saturday we will caution you about deceptive traps that appear to offer financial aid

Enhance the Success of Your New Year’s Goals 3: Goals

This continues our series on how the GoalsWork model will help you improve your career

Warren’s career languished. He’d been in the same job, doing the same thing, for 8 years. He kept waiting for management to notice his potential and move him into a better job.

Then, he learned about the GoalsWork model. He realized that he had never decided where he wanted to go. So, he set a SMART goal. He wrote “Work at the corporate headquarters, at pay grade XX, in the XX division, within four years.”

He began to visualize himself, in detail, in that job. Following the GoalsWork model, he achieved his goal six months early.

Words from Walt

You probably notice that I quote a lot from Walt Disney. I admire him as a dreamer who made his dreams a reality. As the song from the Carousel of Progress at Disney World proclaims

“Man has a dream—and that’s the start. He follows his dream with mind and heart. And soon it becomes a reality. It’s a dream come true for you and me.”

He declared “If we can dream it. We can build it.”

Walt also set very specific goals that were relevant to his motto “The inclination of my life—the motto, you might call it—has been to do things and make things which will give pleasure to people in new and amusing ways.”

Set SMART Goals

I like setting SMART goals. I didn’t create it, but I encourage you to set them. SMART goals are:

• Specific: You will achieve your goals the more clearly you can visualize them. Outline in specific terms what you want to achieve
• Measurable: Include a measurement in your goal to measure if you achieved it
• Achievable: While you want to stretch yourself, set goals you can realistically achieve
• Relevant: Ensure your goal takes you where you want to go, doing what you want to do, & being what you want to be
• Time-bound: Include a deadline for the goal. Keep working toward the deadline

Friday we explore how others help you achieve goals—especially others who did them already