How to Manage the Holiday Workload

The holiday season is fast approaching. And while most of us look forward to relaxed days with the family, some are already anticipating the rush – not only on the road but also in the office.

Deadlines do not cease to exist during the holiday season, but employees seem to do so. As a result, a select few have to carry the burden of delivering outputs without the crucial help from their holiday-celebrating colleagues.

It is best to prepare early for the season. This way, nobody gets unnecessarily busy, and everybody gets to spend time with their family. Here are some ideas:

• Create a priority list. Bump all the important tasks to the top. This ensures that no urgent and crucial job will be left undone by the time everybody takes a leave.
• Delegate. As early as now, give your team their roles and responsibilities. This will help them pace themselves so they can finish their tasks before they take days off from work.

• Set deadlines. You need a clear set of dates for each phase of each task. Everybody should stick to it, or else you will be left with the problem of finishing tasks that your team left.
• Get your rest too. Although you have a big responsibility, it does not mean that your health should be compromised just so you can finish your tasks. Eat right, get plenty of rest, and allot a set time for work.
• Chill out. Don’t feel too stressed about the holiday season. Calm down and know that together with your team, you will be able to achieve a lot. If you feel pressured and stressed out, your team will also feel pressured and stressed out.
• Meet regularly. As the holiday season draws near, your team might lose their focus on work. As they sigh and look out the window, call for a meeting and ask for updates. This way, everybody stays on their toes during work hours.
• Celebrate too! A day before most of your team takes their annual leave, gather everybody for a little party. You can exchange gifts, eat great food, and just enjoy each other’s company. Surely after a season of working hard, you and your team deserves to unwind.
• Be generous with encouragement and advice. Your team needs you during times when stress is at a high level. Always be visible in the office, and check on your employees once in a while. Ask them how they are, and encourage them to bring up any issues. This way, you maintain an open communication line with them, preventing any little hassle to become a big issue.

Executive Presence 101

What presence? And why do you need it? Let’s just say that if you want to get the part, you need to act the part. If you act like an unconfident employee, how will you be entrusted with an executive job that will require you to lead people? And if you do not dress well, how will your boss imagine you meeting with VIP clients? You might just get stuck in that accounting job if you do not step up.

As an executive, you represent the company more significantly than when you are not. This means that you need to develop a kind of presence that is asserting, confident and certain. Here are some pointers you need to take note of as you check if you indeed have executive presence.

• Look polished. You do not have to wear the most fashionable outfits everyday, but at least look crisp. One question that will help you gauge your outfit appropriateness for executive level is “Will I feel confident enough in this outfit to brave an interview for a dream position?” If your answer is no, invest in better wardrobe pieces.
• Communicate clearly. Always be direct, always get to the point. Your voice should be assertive, and when you speak, you should speak with ideas that are worth considering. While it is okay to joke, you need to make sure that you are able to balance it out with contributions to the team. Also, listening is a very crucial skill any executive should have. Actually, it is a skill any person should have.

• Focus on the right things. You do not want to be labeled as the employee who table hops just to get the latest gossip around, neither would you want to be branded as the lazy guy who always shows up with a big burger, later for work. You come to the office to work, and to reach a goal. If you fail to do that, what kind of presence will you project? When people see you, they should be encouraged to work.
• Know how to work under a lot of pressure. Grace under fire – this is one trait that you need to develop. As an executive, you will be bombarded with different pressures and difficulties. Failure to handle them well can affect your career. It can make or break you, so learn how to conduct yourself during worst moments.
• Be decisive. Executives make the decisions, and your decisiveness will depend a lot on your ability to think critically and to weigh factors properly. From these traits, you can have the confidence to go with a decision firmly, and follow through it too.

Executive Job Search Tips

If you think your job at the executive level is untouchable, you might be shocked to know that a lot of high level professionals suffered job loss, or discontent in their current position.

And if you take a quick look at the job market, you will see that there are actually a lot of talents that are looking for a job right now – some at your level, some in even higher ones.

How can you stand out in a competition where highly skilled individuals are vying for coveted positions? Here are some tips:

• Network to find jobs quickly. Since the competition is cut throat whether you’re looking through banking jobs or finance jobs, you need to make a way to call dibs on a position. This involves knowing key people in certain companies and getting inside information about a vacancy, even before they publish a job ad.
• Know who you are and be ready to tell anybody about yourself. Imagine yourself having only thirty seconds to convince somebody to hire you. What will you tell them? You need to be able to state your name, what you do, the position you are aiming for, and any other essential information that will help you build yourself up more.

• Keep an extensive online portfolio. It’s one thing to be visible online, it’s another to be visible with information that can catapult you to success. Have a personal website where you can showcase your achievements. If relevant, keep a portfolio that highlights outputs from previous projects.
• Keep a short list of employers you want to work for. Based on your skills and competency, create a list of companies and positions to target. You do not want to apply to just every position you see online. As an executive professional, you need to develop a strategy that will get you to the best position for you at the soonest possible time.
• Do not depend on your contacts to get in touch with you when they find out about a vacancy. Instead, follow up on them regularly. You do not want to pay the waiting game, sitting in your chair hoping to get a call from a colleague working in the company you want to be in. Be more proactive in your search.



How to Have a Successful Phone Interview

It is not unlikely that you will be interviewed on the phone for an executive job you applied for. With the hectic schedule everybody has to manage, it just seems logical to sometimes just hold the first interview via phone. It is cheaper, more efficient and will also save you a lot of time.

However, it can be tricky to pull of an excellent interview on the phone, whether it is an accounting job or a media job you are applying for. There are a lot of limitations, and you might find it difficult to evaluate whether you did well or not. The best thing you can do is to prepare well for it, and do better in following up. Here are some tips:

• Feel free to reschedule. If you get the call in the middle of something, like if you’re driving, tell the interviewer that you would want to talk with them, but you are currently occupied. It is best if you can take the call minutes after, instead of postponing it to the next day. And make sure that you ready your resume, your notes about the position and the company that you are applying.
• Take the call in a quiet place. If you’re at home, choose the quietest room in the house. Make sure your kids will not bug you during the call, and pets will not make any noise.

• Prepare for the call like you would for a personal interview. You will be asked the same questions anyway, so better ready your answers to canned questions. When thrown the “Tell me about yourself card,” you should be able to answer properly.
• Sit properly, or stand up. This puts you in a professional stance. Rather than taking the call in bed or on the sofa, go to your dining table, sit straight and smile. Smiling helps a lot. Ask any radio DJ and he will tell you how big a difference it makes. If you can, put on heels or a coat.
• Ask the interviewer how long the interview will take. This will help you manage your time talking. You do not want to talk too fast and run out of things to say, you don’t want to talk too slow and miss essential information.