Workplace Romances – Jared Woods

Where do you see yourself in five years?

// June 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Career Development

Most companies ask this because it’s a way of finding out more about what drives a candidate, so they can be more expertly profiled for a manager or role. The closer the alignment between where we want them to be, and where they want to be, the higher they rate on the scale. It’s part of that old chestnut, ‘culture fit’. It’s company-serving information – it benefits the organisation.

I think there’s a better way. A way that includes changing the defaults.

• When someone answers that question, write down the answer in full. Explore it if it isn’t clear enough by discussing it with them.
• If they get the job, give it to their manager before they start, as a reminder.
• Brief the local L&D team that this is where they want to be in five years.
• Organise a skills assessment that can sit above their resume as a current state analysis.
• Find someone who’s at that point now and approach them about starting a mentoring relationship.
• Find people with similar goals and create networking opportunities for those people to meet and share ideas.
• Look at succession planning and see what schedule of upskilling and project/task exposure is needed to achieve the milestones involved in that goal.
• Include the goal in dialogue discussions and reviews
• Make it process. Make it part of their everyday experience. Send the message that you’re thinking about how you can give them what they want, besides just paying for their time.

If every employee feels like the business cares about their dreams, and is actively monitoring their progress, then there’s something to come to work for besides a paycheck. There’s a future they have a say in.

How To Build Your Freelancer Brand

// September 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Career Development

Whether you’re an established freelancer or just starting out, your reputation is your most important asset when it comes to winning work. Being able to meet the brief for a client is important too, but it’s your reputation that gets you invited to heat the brief in the first place.
In an increasingly connected business community, there are three key strategies to pursue when building your brand and your reputation. Each of these strategies leads to engaging a particular psychological pillar. Using all three gives you an edge when pitching for work, and helps you create a personality for your business.

One: Be Proud.

Showcasing your work is the key to engaging with clients. Unless you’re in a local trades arena, your client base wants to see and hear what you’ve done. More importantly, they want to hear if it worked. Concise, demonstrative results appeal very strongly to the reason-driven side of business arguments. Prove what you do works, and you’ve demonstrated capability and understanding of the commercial realities of your clients’ business.

Two: Align Your Values (and theirs).

Your brand has values. Every brand has values. The values are your tenets, the pillars that hold up your business philosophy. Whether your philosophy is innovation or systemic discipline or expression, it’s supported by a values argument. Embrace those values as a tool to win work from like minded clients.
If you’re generous with your intellectual property, demonstrate it to clients. If you’re ethically opposed to sweatshops, ensure this is a visible part of what you’re about. It helps you attract clients who will work well with you, and give clients who aren’t aligned to your values plenty of opprtunity to either self-select out or raise concerns. And because the right clients make a world of difference to how well your business comes out, this is important. This also satisfies a psychological construct around doing business with the “right” kind of people.

Three: Give the people more of what they want.

When a client is happy with the work you’ve done, spend time asking them why. Get measureble business outcomes from your clients and use the data that isn’t sensitive to promote your business. Research among your existing clients not only leads to more work from them, but also more referrals and a better reputation outside your marketing work.
Check regularly with your clients. Ask them what they liked most and disliked most about your service. Fix the bad and enhace the good, and you’re creating a perception that you’re receptive and flexible. You’re demonstrating to clients that their opinion as a client matters to you. This helps build trust and rapport. It also fills the emotional, human side of decision making, by showing clients you see them as allies, not adversaries or a necessary evil.
These aren’t instant recipies for success, but they go a long way to solidifying your brand