Soft Skills to Pay Attention to Today

Got a meeting to attend? Have a deadline to beat? Too busy in your manager job or director job? Executives are so busy that they neglect certain parts of their professional performance, especially the soft skills. These are characteristics that cannot be developed through school, but are honed through experience and close attention. Take a look at the following soft skills that we see important and pivotal for your career:
•    Idea generation. When problems arise, are you able to come up with several solutions, or are you always stumped with nothing? You need to be able to develop this trait because the more ideas you can come up with, the more chances you will have in solving a problem effectively. This is also valuable during planning or hack sessions!

•    Problem sensitivity. Are you able to identify or sense a problem at the onset, or are you so naïve at everything that’s happening at work? When you are sensitive to problems, you will be able to prevent it from becoming worse. It also shows that you are proactive and can be relied upon by subordinates.
•    Flexibility. This is the ability to “roll with the punches” and then get back up to try another method of solving a problem or finishing a project. This is essential in order for you not to be stuck in situations where your current approach does not work. And if you are a flexible leader, you will be more loved by your subordinates. Use your flexibility not only in approaching projects, tasks and responsibilities, but also in managing people in your team.
•    Originality. During meetings, do you come up with the craziest (yet at times most effective) ideas, or do you always find yourself saying “That’s also what I thought of” when a co-worker presents what’s in his mind? It’s one thing to come up with different approaches to a problem; it’s another to come up with a single yet most ingenious one. Practice this skill by talking with co-workers, reading up articles, even watching movies.

Read the rest of the article here.

Do You Have a Resume Gap?

Sometimes, even though we plan out our lives down to the hours, situations force us to make a detour. It may be caused by something that we don’t choose to happen such as a sick family member; sometimes it’s our own choice, like going back to school. As a result, our executive jobs takes a break for months and even years. That’s where we will find the resume gaps – significant periods of time where we didn’t have a job.
The problem with this is that the gap will never be filled. It will stay in your resume (because of course you need to be as honest as possible in your CV), and you might have to explain it over and over again. That’s good, rather than not being asked about it and instead only getting dismissed as someone who did not work for two years or so. As long as you’re ready and prepared to respond to questions regarding your gaps, you’ll be fine. Here are some tips:

Wait for the question to be raised. You don’t need to explain resume gaps in your cover letter, nor do you have to insert an explanation somewhere in your resume. Remember that the purpose of both your resume and your cover letter is to get you an interview. If your cover letter sounds guilty or defensive, employers might get turned off.
Be honest. Better to be genuine than to sound fake. Recruiters talk to different applicants on a regular basis, and so you can expect them to know if somebody is not telling the truth. Moreover, they have heard all sorts of cliché type of answers, such as “I was in between jobs” or “I was exploring my options.” For three years you were exploring your options? We don’t think so. Just state the true reasons if you ever get asked about the time gaps in your resume, and state them as a matter of fact. Not defensively; not emotional.
Prove that you’re relevant. Amid the gaps in your resume,  you can still prove yourself worthy of being accepted into the job that you are applying for. Cover up the gaps with your strengths, skills and competency.

Read the rest of the article here.

Reap the Benefits of Mentoring

In our previous blog entry, we talked about how you can optimize being a mentee. After all, we are already well aware of its benefits. On the other side of the fence, however, are mentoring and its unpopular benefits. Some executives shy away from mentoring up and coming professionals due to different reasons. They’re too busy; there’s nothing in it for them. But if you really think about it, being a mentor to somebody has more benefits than drowning in office documents that you need to review. Let’s take a look.

• Affirmation. Knowing that somebody appreciates and looks up to you is one of the best forms of affirmation. It will help you value yourself more, and hopefully will drive you to keep on pressing to do what is best for you and for your career. We know that it works in financial jobs as much as it does in banking jobs!

• Learning. Being the mentor does not mean being the loser with a disrupted schedule and a busier life. If you look at mentoring in a different light, you’ll realize that it has, in itself a lot of learning opportunities for you. Why not make a deal with your mentee. You’ll teach him all about programming, and he’ll teach you how to optimize the usage of your smartphone. Simply conversing with younger professionals is an enriching experience in itself.
• Commitment. Being a mentor is much the same as being a mentee, in such a way that you are accountable to the person you’re transferring knowledge to. When you know that somebody is watching your every move and expecting to learn from them, you’d be more careful in your decisions as a professional, you’d give every task your best shot, you may even change your ways when it comes to reporting to work on time!
• Challenge. While the mentee will feel challenged by your assignments and the learnings that you give, you can also get that challenge from thinking of ways to communicate an idea, or on ensuring that your mentee will learn everything he needs.

Read the rest of the article here.

Reap the Benefits of Being Mentored

Back then, mentoring was a nice thing to have among professionals in executive jobs. Today, it’s essential, from acting to accounting jobs. In a corporate landscape where everybody is in a healthy competition, being mentored is as crucial as mentoring someone. In this blog entry we will explore some of best ways to maximize being mentored, and on the next one, we will look at the other side of the fence – mentoring somebody. Take note of the following strategies that will help you make the most of having someone help you out in your career.

Come up with a clear set of goals

Why do you want to be mentored? There are different reasons that overlap, but make sure that you will be able to cover those that you want to achieve. Also having a clear set of goals will help you ensure that the direction of your career is not set by the mentor.

• Do you want to get better at doing what you currently do? This will help you escalate the technical ladder of expertise.
• Do you want to take another course of work? This will help you be adept with another job that you want to transfer to.
• Do you want to learn how to manage other people? If you want to become a leader, this is your main goal.
• Do you want to build contacts? Sometimes, it is as easy as building the contacts that will help you succeed in your career.

Come up with a clear set of expectations from each other.

Surely your mentor is not doing it just for you. And naturally, you should not simply get what you want from him. At the onset, talk about the things that you may work on together, where you can help and where he will help you. Answer the following questions:

• What are the tools and resources that you will use?
• What outputs will you give that will contribute to the mentor’s existing project/career?
• What is your mentoring schedule? Based on that, will you be able to achieve your goals?

Read the rest of the article here.

How to Get Noticed during Your Job Search

A lot of executives are now well aware that in order for them to have a successful job search, they have to embrace and adopt to the fact that the jobhunting process is now both multichanneled and multitiered. This translates to going beyond simply sending in application letters to companies that you are targeting, but also creating online profiles, strengthening a network and staying updated on job market news. Whether you are looking for a sales job or are going for one of the many IT jobs in the country, you need to be more strategic if you really want to get “the” job.

However, for you to have a well-integrated job search, you need to be able to achieve much more than simply scattering your name online and offline. You have to keep an eye on the following value-increasing activities as well:

• Strengthening credibility
• Emphasizing a distinct trait that sets you apart from the competition
• Expanding your reach in the job market

Although no single strategy will give you instant results, the following tips are definitely helpful in having milestones in your job search, and ultimately in your career.

• Speak at conferences and meetings. This will increase your credibility not only among industry key players, but also among younger professionals in the field. When you speak at a meeting of a professional organization, you immediately establish your expertise in your industry. Who knows, somebody who listens to your speech might mention you to the CEO of your dream company. With the wide reach you achieve in a conference, this is not far from happening.
• Write articles. Before, it was very difficult to get published and to reach your intended readers. However today, it’s much easier thanks to the Internet. Look for key websites that executives and industry bigwigs visit often, and submit articles that will place your name on the site. Remember that you should write to establish your credibility, but also to contribute to the website you’re submitting articles to. If the webmasters do not see that your articles are worth reading, then your efforts will all be for naught.
• Mentor other professionals. Sharing your expertise in a more personal and relational manner may seem little to you, but you will reap its benefits once the people you mentor speak about you to other executives. There is nothing more rewarding than other professionals personally gushing about how helpful or how excellent you are in your craft.

Read the rest of the article here.

Focusing on Contacts

Are you one of those people who make a big deal out of acquiring business cards? That’s a good start! It means that you know the value of getting contacts. On the other hand, if you’re not into getting the phone numbers of people you meet in conferences, you should start changing that now. Each and every contact that you get is representative of a valuable link to your expanding network, and it is especially important among executive jobs.

It is best to follow up with contacts while you’re still fresh in their memories, such as a day after a conference. Otherwise, what promised to be a valuable relationship may be tossed in the garbage. A lot of executives make the mistake of stopping at getting the contact details, when in fact it should only be the commencement of connecting with a contact.

So how can you start? By sending a follow-up email to your contact. Here are some tips to help you craft an effective email that will solidify the connection between you and a contact, whether you’re looking for accounting jobs or sales jobs:

• Establish the connection. When you follow up with contacts, your email should start with a reminder about how and where you met. This is crucial, because if you don’t establish this, the person reading your email may not make sense of anything you say in the rest of your message. To strengthen the recall, mention something that has to do with the interaction you had with each other, such as a topic that you talked about or a joke that one of you cracked. With fingers crossed, hope that they will remember your name and your face.
• Give something in return. To build a solid connection between you and a contact, offer or give something in exchange of what you are after. One of the biggest turn-offs is simply asking for a favor and not extending help in any way. Why not refer a potential client? If your contact sees that it is worth to build a relationship with you, he will exert the same effort as you do.
• Give more information. If you left a topic hanging after your initial meeting, give follow-up information in your email. This will show that you were paying attention in your conversation and that you care about the pieces of information that you exchanged.

Read the rest of the article here.

Time to Update that Resume Yet Again

How many times are you reminded to update your resume? Supposedly, every time there is an update that you need to make. However, “updating” does not only translate to adding an accomplishment. Instead, it should mean creating a resume that is up-to-date and in line with the current job hunting and employment trends, whether you are looking for finance jobs or banking jobs. Here are some tips that can help you have an always-updated resume that will significantly help in scoring a job position:

• Cover all bases. The job market is in transition today when it comes to preferences. The hiring manager may be impressed with a resume that is accessible through a URL, but he may also prefer a resume that comes as an attachment to an email. To be sure, send an application with an attached resume and a link to the page where it’s also located.

• Adapt to technology. Next to jetfighters, technology is the fastest moving vehicle today. Keep up with the latest tech tools that can help you leave a good impression on a hiring manager. Create social media accounts, especially in professional websites such as LinkedIn. This not only gives a good impression on employers, but also does well in making it easy for them to contact you. So yes, ultimately, it helps give a good impression.
• It’s okay to have a long resume. In a world where everything’s shortened and made easier, long resumes may actually prove to be more impressive. Before, the advice was to keep your resume as short as possible. But if in your executive life you’ve accomplished things that will not fit a page, it’s okay. Your lengthy resume may just be the key to your being hired.
• How your resume looks will always matter. Whether in print or in an email message format, your resume should look neat and organized, like you really spent time creating it. Now that there are a lot of ways to edit and format files, you have no more excuse to come up with a resume that is shabby-looking. With the large amount of resumes that employers receive on a day to day basis, it is more than worth it to create one that is easy on the eyes.

Read the rest of the article here.

How to Become a More Ethical Leader

We live in a day where morals are exchanged for money. Let’s change this, shall we? Let’s be more ethical leaders, standing up for what is right and inviting others along so that, cliché as it may sound, the world may be a better place. As an executive, you know very well that changes are possible, although at times more challenging to make. Executive jobs need to change, as much as rank and fileaccounting jobs and IT jobs do. Here are some tips that can help you become a more ethical leader in the corporate world:

• Know yourself and your personal values. They say it is difficult to separate one’s personal life from his work. Knowing oneself is key to finding a work environment where he can thrive and grow. As you moved on from one position to another, you may have noticed that the offices where your personal morals were not quenched were the ones where you enjoyed your time and did not feel stress.

• Know your company’s values. In relation to your personal values, you should also know your companies values. If, for instance, there are some points that you see similar to yours, you may even be more encouraged and empowered to give your best to the company. Going beyond the daily goals and tasks will help significantly in the way you work and project yourself in the office.
• Emphasize the company’s values in the way you work. Promote the values of your company by exemplifying it in how you work, in how you relate with others, and even in the projects that you do. Whenever you get to talk with an employee that you are training, let them know of the values that make your company as successful as it is right now.
• Create a policy, if there is none existing. Create the change that is needed in your office by proposing a policy that everybody can adopt. This way, the ethics will be set in place and will be followed strictly. As you create the policies, there should be also a concrete consequence to every instance that the policies are not honored.

Read the rest of the article here.

Old is Gold

This is the statement that we need to take into heart, as companies in all across the country, from banking jobs to financial jobs, are encouraged to consider, nay, to appreciate and hire older employees. This is to make up for the possible shortage of workers brought by the stringent standards set for foreigners who are seeking employment in Singapore.

Come to think of it, older employees indeed have a lot to offer, not only in terms of their competence and capabilities, but also in soft skills. For instance, older executives may have better ways to handle a difficult situation, based on past experiences. They can also contribute on the enrichment of the company’s core values. The presence of older employees in a certain group can be encouraging, if not comforting, to the younger ones.

So instead of throwing resumes of senior executives to the bin, set them apart and see what they can bring to the table. Change the mindset of the whole company and start to take in older employees. Being old does not mean that one is not capable; it can be the opposite, in fact! For all we know, they are even more nimble than most of us.

The challenge in hiring older employees may include managing the group despite their different ages, or different approaches in attacking a problem or a situation. You only have to determine and identify strategies that you can use to strengthen your workforce as older employees come in. Think of team building activities that will make it easier for employees to understand each other despite their age. Conduct meetings that enable everybody to interact with each other and learn about insights unique to their age groups.

It’s all about your attitude, really. If you see elderly employees as a nuisance to the company, then that is what you’re going to see happening when you hire them. However, if you live by the adage “Old is gold,” then you will know your investment is more than worth it.

Read the rest of the article here.