What You Want

A million years ago a very good friend of mine and I were talking about the next step in my career. He told me to think about what I wanted, and start telling people. “People will help you get what you want, but you have to be able to tell them what it is.” A million things raced through my mind, the first being “but I can’t ask for what I want! I have to work for it!”

I’m not the first woman to have this belief stuck in my head. But any man will tell you that while hard work is certainly required, asking for that promotion or plum assignment is how you get ahead. I did just that early in my career. I was looking for my next project and a big, new and risky development effort was coming our way. I made an argument for why I should do it, and to my surprise my boss said yes. It was the hardest two and half years of my life, but very rewarding.

That project gave me the confidence to look for other “risky” opportunities and work my way into them. I don’t regret any of the projects I accepted, even when they didn’t last or didn’t work out.

Now I’m thinking about what I want from my next position. It’s one thing to give an elevator pitch about what you can do and what you are looking, it’s something else to turn that elevator pitch into an expression of what you want.

So, what do you want?

The Office Buzz

I walked into an office building today to meet Don for lunch. It’s been a couple months since I was in the belly of one of the Valley giants. I felt a palpable energy right there in the lobby. Vendors calling for their escorts, conversations happening on the go, people walking with determination and urgency to their next destination. Wow! People were working! And I witnessed the glory of it all.

I miss being part of that large organism we call our office. The ritual of saying hello to everyone in the morning, the daily walk with colleagues to grab a quick lunch in the company cafeteria. The sense of purpose you generate just by sitting down at your desk and typing your password to unlock your computer.

Unemployment in Silicon Valley is at 12%, and is probably higher, closer to 20%. But that still means 80% of the population is out there doing something. Traffic is still bad in the morning, the Whole Foods market parking lot is pretty crowded even when I'm there mid-afternoon on a weekday.

A positive change is coming. Even among my unemployed friends and colleagues, we sense a shift. I know three people that have landed jobs in the last six weeks. Tammy had an interview last week and is likely to begin negotiating her position soon. Eileen is scheduling an interview for next week. Laura got an oral offer this week. Stephen started a job just a few weeks ago.

There is a buzz, and it is not only in the office.

More on the Basics

Recently a number of people have asked me to review their resumes. What I notice first is that people describe what they have done and don’t tell a story. Let me tell you how important that story is.

Recruiters and hiring managers are such fickle things. They will glance at your resume, looking for something, but they can’t tell you exactly what. It’s like pornography; they’ll know it when they see it. But once they decide to look at your resume in more detail, they need to read about your accomplishments, how you solved problems, how you saved the day.

To write a good story the “experts” will tell you to use something called a CAR (Challenge Action Result), or PSR (Problem Solution Result) or some other variation. This is the building block to good resumes story telling. Here is an example using CAR:

Challenge: How to reduce time top upload new customer records arriving at 50k per day

Action: Analyzed data to determine if it were compatible with existing database schemas. Schemas were compatible, so the records were combined

Result: Reduced time to upload from four hours to ten minutes.

Now, translate that into something you can put in a resume:

Modified the existing data base schema and process, reducing the time to upload record load of 50k records per day to ten minutes from four hours.

And, be ready to tell the story during an interview.

The database I managed began to receive over fifty-thousand customer records per day. The time to process that many records was long, about four hours. I took a look at the data in detail to see if there were compatibilities between the existing schemas and the customer records. I found that combining the schemas could be done, with the added benefit of reducing the process time. After I made the schema changes, I measured the processing time and found I had reduced the load time to ten minutes from four hours.

This takes time and thought. I’m sure you have many fine examples of your problem solving skills that will translate into an excellent resume.

The Pitch

Over the last few weeks I have been attending workshops and meetings where everyone must present their “elevator pitch”. This is the brief statement you make when someone asks, “So, what kinda work you lookin’ for?” I have been surprised at how many people are unprepared to answer this question.

I was unprepared, for a long time. Told people I just didn't know what I wanted, which meant none of my colleagues and networking acquaintances could help me. It took me weeks to figure out what I could say. I had all sorts of excuses for why my background wasn’t suited for a sixty second soundbite – my work experience is so varied, I don’t want to be pigeon-holed, how can I explain who I am in so short a time?

I got over it. You have to be ready to answer the question about what you are good at doing, and what you are looking for. It took me a while to write a script – and that is what you need, a script. Write the words that you want to say and memorize it. It takes time, practice, and many re-writes, but it is worth it. I still revise mine, almost every time I say it.

Here’s my current speech, which takes about 30-40 seconds for me to recite.

Hello, my name is Cynthia Gregory, and I am an experienced high tech executive with strong skills in program management. I’ve had the biggest successes and the most fun when I have lead teams to places they have never been before. I have moved organizations to improved process, created and implemented practical governance models, and implemented policies and procedures across a corporation. Now I’m looking for opportunities to repeat those successes.

What does your elevator pitch look like?

The Power of "No"

Who knew that getting a “No” would spur me to such action? Recently I have had interviews, face-to-face interviews, not just a phone screen. Each time I had positive feedback, but in the end the answer was “No”.

There is nothing like a No to get me going to find that next interview. My initial response maybe disappointment, but my next step is action. I dig through my Linkedin contacts and find those people I haven’t talked to in a while. Write up an invitation to coffee or lunch and I’m off.

I’ll start calling my friends and asking for their ideas and their help. Turns out, the more mail I send out the more email I get in my Inbox. Sometimes it leads me down a path I had not been able to see – because I had not asked for directions.

So don’t be frozen in place because of a No. Get moving. Talk to someone. An opportunity is right around the corner and you need directions.

Reach Out. Touch Faith.

It’s easy to become a hermit when you are out of work. You sit in front of your computer reading the job boards, looking for that perfect fit. You cruise your favorite blog sites, check out the latest news, recalculate your portfolio.  You notice the dust on the baseboards and think about getting out the Swiffer to clean things up. You aren’t calling friends, and they aren’t calling you. Who do you talk to? Who helps you work through the frustrations of the job search?

Why not help someone with their job search?  Over the last couple of weeks I have been connecting people to people, or to opportunities.  Sometimes it’s to find out more about a company’s culture, or identifying the hiring manager, or gathering intelligence about the position. More often I’m helping someone just by listening, helping that person keep the faith that the right job is just around the corner.

I’m on a Yahoo! group for former employees of one of the big companies in the Valley. Recently there was a request from one of our members to help understand the process for requesting food stamps. An outpouring of advice, job leads and cash soon followed. But this man really wants to work. JobAngels was one new idea that popped up. JobAngels is creating a community where “each member commits to getting just one person find employment”. I’ve made my commitment and I even have a few “targets” in mind. 

At the risk of sounding a bit New-Age-y, I do believe that helping others helps you.  The best reason for reaching out is to keep you from being that hermit, to keep you connected to the world. So get out there. Find a way to connect. Reach out, touch faith.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

So far, I have had a charmed life – a middle class upbringing, a decent education, very vanilla in every sense of the word. Big, earthshaking, life-changing events haven’t happened to me. That’s not to say nothing has happened, just nothing exciting. I have had all the normal achievements: graduated high school and college, got married and divorced.  I’ve had a good career, been laid off once but found new work quickly. I get to travel, volunteer in my community, and spend time with my family and friends. Sounds pretty good, huh?

I think I have a charmed life because of the way I see life. Don’t get me wrong, I have had disappointments, my share of bad luck now and again. I see more good than bad in my world.  Here’s an example.

My family, that is my parents and my sister and I, would go skiing around Christmas in Beaver Creek, Colorado. Beaver Creek is right next to Vail. (How we came to ski in such a posh spot is another charmed story for later.) I seem to have had a bit of bad luck the past few times I’ve been there – once I put a big dent in the rental car, the last time I was there I sprained my knee, then later my ankle. But this time the skiing and the car were all good.

I love skiing at Beaver Creek. Beaver Creek at Christmas time is like Disneyland with snow and ice sculptures. All the folks that work there are fresh-faced and happy. At the end of the ski day you often run into apple-cheeked teens down at the Mountain Base passing out warm, gooey, chocolate chip cookies. There’s always a bright fire going in front of the Hyatt, spewing sparks and sweet oak smoke. The crowd gathers there with low chatter and hot apple cider. There’s a smell of clothes damp from too many spills on the mountain and a hint of sweat from the day’s effort.  At four o’clock the sky is just starting to darken into that crystal pale blue at the top of the sky and chilling, deep blue close to the mountain top.  The sun drops fast and soon the mountain is quiet and the air is still and a bone-chilling 16 degrees.

Christmas week is also my parent’s anniversary. We decided to go to an Italian restaurant in Vail to celebrate, on me.  I was driving the big ol’ truck we rented for our drive from Denver to the resort. I pulled into the parking lot and couldn’t reach the ticket dispenser. So I put the car in park, opened the door and stretched out and grab the ticket, then closed the door, drove on and parked the car.   When we got out of the car I couldn’t find my purse. I didn’t remember taking it with me from our condo, so I joked with Dad that dinner was on him ha ha ha, and we went on to have a pleasant evening.

Back at the condo I couldn’t find my purse. It was gone. And in that purse of course was my cell phone. My cell phone! Who cares about the driver’s license and the credit cards but the thought of having to re-enter all those phone numbers into a new phone was raising my anxiety level. (This was in the early days, before everything was synch-able.)

My parents were more shaken and agitated than I was.  About to plotz from all the anxiety they hurled every fear my way: “You better cancel your cards tonight! Oh how are you going to drive? Someone could be stealing you blind right now! They are Christmas shopping with your credit cards online!  Oh you should call the police!” They kept hectoring until I said “Okay, let’s take a deep breath. I’m going to believe in the good of mankind, especially this time of year.”

I finally had the sense to call my own cell phone. Some one answered, a man with a friendly voice, raucous restaurant noise in the background. The man, whose name I now forget, yelled at me over the noise that they had my purse. “They” were a group of four people who had pulled into the parking lot right after I did and found my purse neatly placed at the foot of the ticket dispenser.

So before you think that this was the end of the story and that my purse was retrieved without any consequence, know this: They had fun with my phone. Called all my friends asking if they knew how to reach me. All of my friends whose numbers were in the phone. Every. Single. One. One of my friends is entered in my phone as “Peaches” – he wasn’t pleased to be rousted from his evening with a caller that said, “Is this really Peaches? And you’re a guy??” They woke up my friends on the east coast -- it was easily after 11pm in their timezone. My friends were mobilized by this group of Good Samaritans. A couple of friends back here were calling all Vail and Beaver Creek hotels trying to find where we were staying. One enterprising friend called the Vail police. I’m not exactly sure why, but I’m assured my lost purse was entered in the night’s log book. 

So there’s my happy ending. I got a personal demonstration that good things do happen. And I got to talk to my friends on Christmas and tell them how glad I am that they still take my calls.