Smart Career Strategy: Layoff Self-Defense

Because there's no such thing as a permanent job

Susan P Joyce

Have a "permanent job" do you? No, of course you don't. No one does these days.

Even if you are happy in your job, have a great relationship with your boss and co-workers, and feel very secure, don't assume this ideal situation will last forever. With luck, it will last for several years, but don't count on it as a permanent state. Managers leave for better opportunities. Revenue tanks as clients take their business elsewhere or competition increases. Technology replaces work that skilled people performed. "Stuff happens." (I know - I've been laid off myself. Twice.)

5 Steps to Your Layoff Self-Defense

"The best defense is a good offense," according to a famous 19th century Prussian general. Good advice that people have applied to business, politics, relationships, and sports as well as warfare. Not surprisingly, smart people apply that advice to their careers, too.

So, face reality. Even "superstars" lose their jobs. Prepare that good offense as your self-defense. Take these steps so you can bounce back quickly in case of job loss. Ideally, you will be so well prepared that you never lose a day's pay, in case some terrible (and unforeseen) event blows away your current job.

1. Have a complete LinkedIn profile.

Think "personal marketing" because that's what your LinkedIn profile is. No need to hunt for your next employer. They are hunting for you! (Assuming you use the right keywords in your LinkedIn profile -more on that below). Not having a LinkedIn profile is not good for most jobs and most employers.

Employers and recruiters relentlessly search LinkedIn and Google to find good job candidates. Since Google trusts LinkedIn, your LinkedIn profile is shown to those potential employers doing a Google search. So your LinkedIn profile is a key part of your online visibility and your layoff self-defense.

As long as your current employer doesn't have a policy forbidding you to use LinkedIn - some do, so be sure to check! - spend as much time as you can time creating and polishing your LinkedIn profile. And by "time" I mean hours, not minutes copying and pasting your resume into your profile. LinkedIn has criteria for a complete profile (a.k.a. "All Star"), and having a complete profile makes you more visible in LinkedIn search results. Which is good - usually...

2. Really, seriously, crank up the content and quality of that LinkedIn profile!

Your LinkedIn profile is a very public example of your "work product" - a demonstration of the quality of your work (and all those professional skills you claim, like "attention to detail"). You are being judged by the quality of your profile. Is it a good an example of your work? It had better be.

Many job seekers complain to me about how LinkedIn "isn't working" for them. Simply having an officially "All Star" LinkedIn profile isn't enough. When I look at those profiles, the reason they aren't having great success on LinkedIn is obvious. Even a complete profile can be poorly done - sloppy, skimpy, and ineffective.

Proofread, proofread, PROOFREAD! Then have a friend or family member proofread it, too. Remember this is a public example of the quality of your work! LinkedIn contains profiles for numerous "mangers" (vs. "managers"), members of the millitary (vs. military), profesionals (vs. professionals), etc. NOT good for credibility, and certainly not impressive demonstrations of your work product. I've seen MANY profiles describing the member as "detail-oriented." But, the typos provide ample proof that "detail-oriented" is just one of, probably, many exaggerations used in the profile. End of credibility...

Focus your profile on your future, using your past to show what you have accomplished.

3. Brag about yourself and your employers, shamelessly but factually.

This is NOT the time to be modest or to embellish reality! Don't make up accomplishments. Untruths are too easy to uncover today. And don't bury what you do - and how well you do it - in big blocks of text, lists of generic duties and responsible-for items.

Your LinkedIn profile should be a much more complete and interesting than your resume. Highlight your accomplishments and successes. Yes, brag about yourself! LinkedIn is the best platform currently available for personal marketing (a great personal offense), so it is an essential element of your self defense.

Also brag about your employers on LinkedIn, in your profile and other LinkedIn visibility. Brag about all of them and especially your current employer. Making your employers look good makes you look good, too. Bask in that reflected glory! Plus, highlighting how wonderful they are makes your current employer more comfortable with your LinkedIn profile (yes, they will check it out, and, no, they won't be happy to see a "seeking new position as..." statement).

Your current employer and your former employers were excellent in some way. Make that clear. Maybe it was the size (Fortune 1000 bank, most popular restaurant in your city, etc.), a well-known product or service, or filling a unique need. Perhaps it was founded by someone important or famous. Maybe it won some awards or had some patents, started a new field or became the largest producer of something. It's there - dig it out with Google if you must. If it is a publicly-held company, get the total annual sales out of the annual report (whether or not the company was profitable), total number of employees, total number of locations - something impressive.

As usual, if you can't say anything good, stick to the basic facts. But do your best to find something impressive about each of your employers.

4. Pay close attention to your most important keywords.

Keywords are the key words to focus for you to focus on for your layoff self-defense. Keywords are the words and phrases used to find qualified job candidates in searches through Google and LinkedIn, as well as resume databases and employer applicant tracking systems. Don't make the mistake of assuming that you know which keywords employers are using to find people like you.

For example, assume that you have gone through the training, passed the exam, and earned the right to call yourself a Certified Project Management Professional. This long phrase is often shortened to "PMP certification" or "PMP Certified." Not much difference in those terms, is there? They all refer to the same thing, so no significant difference, right? Wrong!

The most frequently used term in job postings is "PMP certification" followed by "certified Project Management Professional." Least used is "PMP certified" and absolutely invisible is "certified PMP." So, if you had earned the certification but used the term "certified PMP" in your LinkedIn profile or online resume, you would not be included in the search results, except, possibly, at the very end (which could be hundreds or thousands of pages).

More about keywords and personal SEO from Job-Hunt.org, including how to find which terms are used most often in job postings.

5. Become known in your profession.

Raise your personal profile inside your profession, representing your employer as well as yourself. Join the appropriate professional organizations and attend the local meetings, write articles for the newsletter, lead professional workshops, or make whatever other contribution works for you. Be visible online in the LinkedIn Groups for your profession or industry, making intelligent observations and comments, linking to useful profession/industry news.

Bottom Line
The advantages of layoff self-defense are that you will raise your personal visibility, building a good reputation for yourself as well as your employer. Then, if something happens to your job or your employer, you won't have to start from zero getting the message out to the world about what you can do and how well you do it. The "right people" will already know.                                          

12 Ways You're Sabotaging Your Career

Avoid these bad work habits

Business Insider

By Jacquelyn Smith

We all have bad habits. Sometimes we we're not even aware of them, or the effect they have on our lives or careers.

"In fact, many of us have habits that sabotage our relationships, work flow, productivity, and bottom line results," says Sylvia Hepler, a career development specialist and author of "Learning Leadership Through Loss." "They can also sabotage our professional future."

Here are 12 common bad habits and behaviors that can seriously hurt your career:

1. Criticizing your boss.

Whispering behind his back, carping to her face, or making your supervisor out to be wrong, pathetic, or inept puts you in the danger zone, Hepler says. "If you're doing this, don't expect to land a promotion or last there."

2. Acting as if you can't learn anything new.

Putting yourself out there as a know-it-all not only earns you the label of arrogant and thwarts your ability to seize opportunities for growth and development, she explains.

3. Blaming others.

"Pointing fingers at somebody else because you lack necessary skills, experience, appropriate behaviors, or sound judgment causes others in your world to view you as disagreeable," says Hepler. "Unlikeable people rarely advance."

4. Wearing your emotions on your sleeve.

Going overboard with disruptive displays of anger, whines of frustration, and dramatic tears usually sends messages of warning to bosses, staff, and peers, she says. "People may conclude that you can't manage your feelings, and that's never a good thing."

5. Telling yourself you can't do something.

This is a mindset that positions you to shoot yourself in the foot. Convincing yourself that you can't accomplish a certain task or project guarantees that you will fail, warns Hepler.

6. Complaining.

"Chronic complainers generally focus on the problems at hand rather than on the potential solutions," she explains. "Instead of moaning about policies, processes, and people, accept what you cannot change or make recommendations for positive change."

7. Waiting for the 'perfect moment.'

"Quite bluntly, procrastinators don't do what needs to be done, when it ought to be done," says Hepler. "If you're holding out for ideal circumstances, be prepared to be seen as someone who is incapable of stepping up to the plate."

8. Viewing yourself as inferior.

Your lack of confidence is a recipe for career stagnation and discontent, she says. "Hesitation, passivity, and timidity are turnoffs to employers."

Of course, being too confident can also be detrimental.

9. Hating your current job.

Cynical feelings about your job impede both your desire and ability to show up and perform at the level for which you are paid. "You'd be wise to switch into neutral and concentrate on the tolerable aspects of your work," she suggests.

10. Believing you can't find a better job.

"Did you know that your beliefs drive your actions?" Hepler asks. "Believe and trust that right now you have skills and experience that somebody else needs and wants."

11. Choosing to remain silent.

Every time you decide to keep your innovative ideas to yourself, avoid asking clarifying questions, or accept poor company policy, you send the message that you're a doormat or largely disengaged, she says. "Typically, responsible and active participation is rewarded at work."

12. Coasting until retirement.

If you're in float mode, think about the legacy you want to leave behind, she suggests. " Others don't remember — or care about — what you accomplished last year when they observe your bare minimum effort now."

How to fix it
"It's difficult for most of us to recognize our sabotaging behaviors in the workplace," adds Hepler. "This is because we are human, and all human beings, regardless of job title or salary, have blinders."

"The best way to identify the habits and actions that hold us back is to seek input from folks we trust," she says. Schedule lunch with a colleague who interacts with you rather extensively every day. Create a comfortable conversational atmosphere and ask that individual to be honest with you. Explain how their observations can benefit both you and the organization at large.

"Whatever your sabotaging habit or action, understand that it prompts people to dislike, avoid, discount, and mistrust you. When this happens, opportunities have a way of passing you by," Hepler warns.      

Your Email Typos Reveal More About You Than You Realize

Typos: the true windows to the soul

Business Insider

By Rachel Sugar

Like mortality, typos are part of the human condition. Someday we'll all die, and someday we'll all send an email with scrambled letters.

We are born alone, we die alone, and we misplace the occasional vowel alone.

But according to Andrew Brodsky, a doctoral candidate at Harvard Business School, those unintentional errors may be expressing more than we think.

Typos, he suggests, aren't just occasionally embarrassing mistakes — they're a window into our emotions.

When you talk to someone face to face, there are a lot of unintentional cues that let on how you really feel about something.

"It's very difficult to control all of your facial features," he points out. "We have unintentional displays. We grimace, we frown, we look away."

But none of that happens in email. Emotionally, it's "cheap," he says. "Things don't tend to slip through, because you can reread it before sending it."

For all its pitfalls, email affords us almost total control of our emotional presentation (even if we tend to misjudge what that presentation is).

So far, most of the research in email communication has focused on intentional cues — capitalization, word usage, emoji. But Brodsky suggests that email contains unintentional emotional cues too.

Is it possible that our typos are giving our bosses, colleagues, partners, and mothers an unedited glimpse at our raw feelings?

The short answer: yes.

When Brodsky had test subjects read an angry email from a fictional sender, they saw that person as angrier when the note had typos. When he did the same with a joyful email, the results were the same: The typos made the sender come across as even more joyful.

Brodsky likens typos to "putting your fist in the air." They're an emotional amplifier. "In a situation where someone should be proud, if they have their fist in the air, it makes them seem even more proud," he says. "If they're angry, it makes them seem more angry."



But before you start amplifying all your emotions — emmotions? — consider that unmediated authenticity comes at a cost.

While people saw the senders as having stronger feelings, they also saw them as less intelligent. "Typos suggested to email readers that sender's decisions and actions were being driven by emotion rather than deliberate cognition," Brodsky wrote in last year's "Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings."

It's possible, though, that there may be a time and a place for a strategic typo or two. "I haven't tested a situation yet where there are clear benefits to using typos over the intelligence loss," he says, but theoretically the idea makes sense.

If emailed emotions come cheap, then in cases where the benefits of seeming authentic would outweigh the benefits of seeming smart, wouldn't the occasional typo make you come across as being even more sincere? Condolences, for example, or enthusiastic congratulations.

As he notes in the Harvard Business Review, the fact that you'll seem less smart is what makes you seem authentic. "What makes errors so believable is that they make you seem less competent: Why would someone ever make a typo if they were trying to impress me?"

That's part of the reason that particularly powerful people come off as even more likable when they make occasional mistakes. They're human, like us.

While we wait for further research — and Brodsky is working on it — it's probably safest to continue to spell-check our emails and proof our texts. But if you do happen to slip up on the keyboard, take heart: You're just being authentic.