For most people this picture represents fruit, ready to be picked and consumed. My question is how hungry are you? What are you willing to do to be successful in your life? The first time I heard the phrase “stay hungry”, I was sitting in a leadership training class. Stay hungry represents your appetite for the challenges of leadership. It represents your willingness to risk, to push past your fears and doubts into creativity. Stay hungry represents passion. What are you passionate about? Happy Wordless Wednesday!
I am back from my trip to Ghana, West Africa. It was an incredible trip. My primary purpose for going was to evaluate an elementary school that is connected to my church. There are 213 children in the school and there are too many needs to mention. In the process of traveling to the school we had the opportunity to see the culture of the country of Ghana. Poverty is in your face from the moment you leave the airport.
I would say that making a buck is one of the most important things you see. People sell anything and everything. Everywhere you go, someone is “hustling” you for a dollar. Everything from underwear to imitation birds in birdcages. If you can imagine it, there is probably someone in Ghana attempting to sell it. As a coach working with people who need to work, I was impressed with the passion and focus the Ghanaians use to make money DAILY. I emphasize this because, it really is a daily grind for the vast majority of people including children. The biblical text, “if you don’t work, you don’t eat” is applicable here. If the people of Ghana don’t get out and hustle their goods, they will probably not eat.
What are you willing to do to make money? Here in the United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, too many people choose to sit around and wait for the phone to ring rather than looking at what is in their hand. What do I mean by that? I had the awesome privilege of seeing people who understand the importance of work. There is not a lot of opportunity to work in Ghana, especially if you do not have an education. So creativity is your friend. Sales skills is an art form in Ghana. People sell what they make, they sell what they buy, they sell every single day of the week and almost any hour of the day or night in order to survive. We could learn a few things about persistence and creating opportunities. Just a few thoughts!
Image Credit: My Collection of Pictures from Ghana, West Africa
If you’re anything like me you probably have a minimum of 5 different email accounts that you maintain. With so many sites offering (even requiring if you want to view their content) free accounts, it can be pretty tempting to come up with some cutesy address. If you are one of those people who tend to use the cutesy email addresses, be sure to maintain at least one with a regular, professional sounding email address. You’ll need it for the job search.
I can’t really give you any real good reason why it is but using an unprofessional email account to correspond with potential employers is bad news. It’s like the perfume or the jewelry, only worse. It screams “I’m unprofessional and I am not taking this job opportunity seriously.”
So, if your name is Jane Doe and your email address is hotjane at gmail.com or contains the word sweet/sexy/sassy or anything of that nature, run right on over to gmail.com and get yourself a professional email account like janedoe at gmail.com.
All you managers out there, what’s the funniest email address you’ve ever seen on resume?
One of the hardest things about a job interview is trying to figure out exactly what the hiring manager is looking for in a candidate. I recently received some great advice about this from a good friend when I was preparing for an interview myself.
“Make them tell you what they want in a candidate, then spend the rest of your time convincing them that you are that candidate.”
Why didn’t I think of that? So rather than try to anticipate what kind of person they may be looking for, I can just ask them? SHAZAMM! That’s genius! And that’s exactly what I did on my last interview. I simply asked the hiring manager what kind of manager she was looking for to fill the position. When she told me that she was looking for the kind of manager who places the utmost importance on customer service and lean processes I was able to give her specific examples of how I excel in both these important areas.
So, the next time you are interviewing, just ask the hiring manager what they are looking for. They’ll appreciate the question and it makes it so much easier to show you are the best person for the job.
Earlier this week I told you about an interview I always remember because the candidate was wearing a lot of a particular perfume that I don’t like. Well, the same candidate also had on big showy jewelry, so I thought we ought to just touch on interview appropriate jewelry.
Wearing jewelry to an interview is really risky for mostly the same reasons that perfume is. Remember that any time the interviewer spends noticing your jewelry is time the are not focusing on your skills and qualifications. Also, they might really hate your taste in jewelry which won’t make them have a good impression of you.
So, unless you are interviewing with a company who has a really exhagurated dress code policy (like a punk rock clothing store) stick to the basics.
Men - a simple watch should just about do it. Lose the ear rings (nose ring, tongue ring etc…) and necklaces.
Women - a simple watch and small boring ear rings. No nose, lip, or tongue rings. I would recommend no necklace but if you must, choose something really delicate.
Remember, you are always trying to keep the focus on yourself, not the way you look or smell.
For most of my regular readers, you know I am in Ghana West Africa. My trip is coming to an end in the next 4 days. I will be back writing regular posts on the hiring and interview process early next week. I wanted to share one our experiences while here in Ghana. My team and I had the opportunity to pray for 4 people who were crippled. Two of the four are walking today. We spent about 2 hours praying for them to walk. God showed up and here is one of the men taking his first steps! Enjoy!
I’ll never forget sitting across from a nice lady who was interviewing for a management position at my organization obsessing over how bad her perfume stunk. I do not remember a single thing this lady said in response to my questions, I only remember that her perfume made me nauseous.
I’m telling this story to illustrate a point. The candidate did not have on too much perfume, it just happened to be one that makes me sick. How was she supposed to know, right? She wasn’t, but she should have known that it’s almost always bad news to wear perfume or cologne to an interview. Here are a few reasons why.
The person who is interviewing you might hate that scent which may make them think less positive of you. This doesn’t mean the interviewer is a bad person, it’s just human nature.
Even if the interviewer loves your perfume, you don’t want them to remember you for the way you smelt, you want them to remember you because of your qualifications.
No matter what they think of your choice of perfume/cologne, any time they spend noticing it is time they were distracted from you. This is never good.
So, the next time you are putting the finishing touches on yourself right before that interview, just say no to the perfume/cologne.
If you are invited for a job interview, try asking the employer if you can review a copy of the job description prior to the interview. They may tell you no, but they’ll think it was cool that you asked, even if they have a policy against sharing those documents with outsiders.
If you are lucky enough to get your hands on the job description, by all means, pay attention to it! Speaking for all the managers out there who have gone to the trouble of writing a job description, writing those things can be a ruff process so don’t dismiss them.
Use the job description to script your interview points. For example, if the job description lists project management as a responsibility you could work that into your interview by saying, “I noticed that the job description lists project management as one of the primary responsibilities, I’ve lead several major projects that I wanted to be sure to tell you about.”
If you don’t have access to the job description, follow the same principles with the job listing.
For most people this picture represents fruit, ready to be picked and consumed. My question is how hungry are you? What are you willing to do to be successful in your life? The first time I heard the phrase “stay hungry”, I was sitting in a leadership training class. Stay hungry represents your appetite for the challenges of leadership. It represents your willingness to risk, to push past your fears and doubts into creativity. Stay hungry represents passion. What are you passionate about? Happy Wordless Wednesday!
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