Climbing The Ladders

Every Monday morning, I receive a personalized newsletter from Marc, giving me advice on hiring, recruiting, how to prepare my resume and interviews. When I say personalized, it’s not really, but I am happy to have my name in the salutations (see below).

It's written Yvens, which is me!

A part of my 10K, requires me to work for someone else. While doing so, I have to go through the painful process of looking for a great job. Luckily, there are many resources and lots of information on how to fine-tune your resume to find the perfect job. You probably have been around people that are extremely confident in their job hunting skills. They brag that they have a super solid resume and boast on the fact that they wrote their resume from scratch. OK. Great, but why aren’t you doing or working for Google or in your dream job? Sometimes, you have to shut up and listen. I personally hate writing my resume. It is a tedious process that requires a lot of energy for me. It does not come naturally, not at all. Therefore, I plan to surrender the resume writing process to a professional writer and focus more on building my own opportunities. Such services can be acquired through my “friend” Marc, and his company The Ladders. (I am not making a penny out of this; I just really enjoy their tips. You can probably find someone in your region that does the same great job, but for cheaper.)

The resume is only the first part, when you are done selling yourself to your future boss during the interview; you have to put in the work. Fortunately, most of us are not ants and we do not get rewarded simply on pure productivity. Other factors as skills, personality, leadership and many other factors come into play. One thing that stuck with me is that an employee needs 3 things. One, he needs a great attitude. Second, he needs to be manageable. When these 2 things are put together, talent will flourish with a fertile ground for advancement and development. This is when your 10K gets very useful. You can always find a mentor or a career coach, if your boss isn’t one already.

As you move up, there is one common trait of all VP’s, CEO’s and etc. They communicate brilliantly. They do so by either by writing, selling the company, the employees, and the products with passion. Don Keough from Coca-Cola had that kind of talent. More recently, Steve Jobs had this skill. Jobs, in his famous jeans and turtle neck, sway the world with amazing little devices, sharing his passion for perfection and technology.  You can then let your hair down and become whoeveryou want to become. The world is yours.

Want more on the subject? Here are a few books that help you figuring out how to move up the ladders, should you need to do so.

Good luck.

Yvens