Humble pie for breakfast

I had humble pie for breakfast the other day.

My husband and I are dieting.  This particular day we each had a business luncheon scheduled and knew that we couldn’t easily be calorie compliant.  So we agreed that we would be moderate in our consumption and get right back to the calorie counting the next day.

As a modest treat, we stopped at a local coffee shop to enjoy a pastry for breakfast.  The sweet clerk behind the counter asked which pastries we preferred.  I said that I wanted a chocolate muffin — it’s only really a treat for me if it’s sugar, grease, AND caffeine, right?!

Anyway, she stepped over to the pastry counter, looked back at me, and said, “You wanted a cinnamon chip scone, right?”  “No,” I corrected politely, “I’d like a chocolate muffin.”

We continued to chat about the weather and I noticed that she hadn’t yet selected my pastry.  So I paused.  She said, “You wanted a cinnamon chip scone, right?”  “No, I’d like a chocolate muffin,” I responded.

She reached toward the muffins, but went back to the weather.  We chatted a little more.  She put the pastry into the bag and came over to the counter to ring-up our purchase.  “OK,” she summarized, “that’s one maple scone [for my husband] and one cinnamon chip scone.”  “No,” I said with a little more firmness edging into my voice, “I’m getting a chocolate muffin.”  “Oh yes, that’s right.”

She completed the sale.  We left the store.  I dropped off my husband at his office.  And I drove the rest of the commute to work.

After returning a few phonecalls and responding to a few emails at my office, I had an available couple of minutes to snatch the first luscious bite of my pastry.  You remember, right?  The chocolate muffin?

Taking a deep anticipatory breath, I opened the bag ready for the lingering aroma of chocolate to caress my nostrils.  Nothing.  Was it stale, I pondered?  Nope.  It wasn’t stale.  There wasn’t an aroma of chocolate because the pastry in the bag wasn’t a chocolate muffin.  You guessed, didn’t you: it was a cinnamon chip scone.  BLECH!

Needless to say, I was pretty cranky for a few moments!  This was going to be my special treat on a rare diet-moderation day.  And a cinnamon chip scone just didn’t do it for me!

Then I took another deep breath.  And I said to myself, “Elyse, what are you thinking?!  Be grateful that you have a scone to eat.  Be grateful that you have a car to drive.  Be grateful that you have a desk … and a chair … and job at which you take a break.”

So that was the morning that I had a cinnamon chip scone for breakfast, along with a healthy serving of humble pie.

In these turbulent days for our nation and our world, perhaps it’s fitting for us to each have a serving of humble pie from time to time.  To focus, at least occasionally, on our still-abundant blessings and not just on our losses.

Tips, part 5

Our multi-part series of ideas about increasing your visibility to recruiters and other HR professionals concludes with some thoughts about blogging.  Go figure, eh?!

Communication occurs in so many forms and layers.  And that’s certainly true of the employment process, too.  Résumés and cover letters are the most familiar introductory form of communication for a prospective employer, but they’re not the only forms.  Just as professional social networks are increasingly common tools for recruiters to find and learn about individuals and their careers, so blogs are increasingly common tools for recruiters to find and learn about individuals and their work.

Blogs and other websites organized around verbal, visual, and multi-media expressions give even a novice the opportunity to directly display her/his distinct style and creativity.  Essentially, one is designing a public portfolio.  I’m focusing on written/verbal communication in the thoughts I’m sharing today, but these ideas could be similary relevant for visual and multi-media expressions.

This technique is not equally effective for all career paths.  It’s probably less helpful for a career in restaurant management, credit and collections, or banking regulatory compliance, for instance (although even in these highly specialized careers one might use a blog to write articles demonstrating one’s expertise).  It’s probably more helpful for a career in writing and editing, marketing and design, or graphic arts.  Careers that involve similar components of overtly creative communication, in other words.

Recruiters and other HR professionals are increasingly utilizing megasearch tools to find blogs by creative individuals.  They’re not looking so much for the résumé as for the direct sample of each individual’s style. 

Knowing this, you may shape the content and/or design of your blog accordingly.  For example, if you’re a creative writer, you may want to post samples of your poetry, short stories, or similar pieces.  If you’re a copy writer (in marketing or advertising), you may want to post samples of a press release, a technical article, or an ad text.

But there’s no need to limit your approach to a direct sample.  Even a daily blog about your everyday experiences may offer an even better example of your writing style.  Unconstrained by some of the more formal requirements of a résumé or cover letter, you have more freedom and wherewithal in your blog to employ a more casual, even experimental style.  For example, in a résumé or cover letter I would be very hesitant to use exclamation points, double hyphens between phrases, and other fun expressions.  But I do use these in my blog to try to convey a more conversational tone.  Just keep in mind that you do still want your communications to be construed as positive by people in business!

Be sure to explore any related issues of copyright and intellectual property if you’re publishing more formal samples of your work online.

Once you’re up and running, be sure to reference your blog in your résumé, too!

Tips, part 4

Our multi-part series continues with tips on increasing your visibility as a prospective employee.  Today I’d like to add some thoughts about participating in an online social network.

Most avid Internet users are familiar with at least one of the social networks.  Facebook, myspace, and secondlife come to mind, as well as linkedin.  In addition, there are so many specialized networks on sites such as ning.com.

Until recently, the emphasis in these online communities has been on their social (meaning “personal”) functionality: contacting friends; posting fun photos; meeting people with similar interests.  But now there is a growing emphasis on their professional networking functionality, too.  The dramatic increase of business pages on these sites is just one signal of that change.

It’s fairly common knowledge among social network members that prospective employers often check these sites as part of their background screening before extending an offer to a candidate.  This is why more members are increasingly selective about what photos they post, for example!

It is perhaps less well known that more and more recruiters and HR professionals are using these networking sites as tools for finding terrific candidates, especially for more specialized searches.  Résumés have a definite two-dimensional quality and space limitation … there’s so much that they can’t convey effectively or concisely.  That includes your interests, your indirect experience, and even your career hopes.  Your page or public profile on a social networking site, in contrast, can communicate a much more robust sense of who you are, including who you are professionally.  For example, I recently worked on a search that required experience in shipping and receiving, but also the potential to move into other roles for this manufacturer.  I was delighted to learn from one candidate’s page on a social network that he has an interest in rebuilding old cars.  That’s not something he would ordinarily include on his résumé, but it turned out to be very relevant for this particular opening.

Some recruiters actually prefer these networking sites to more traditional résumé databases because people tend to keep their personal pages more fully updated.  There are HR professionals who target their searches to individuals with a wide range of connections or contacts.  But there are also recruiters who focus their searches on the content of your page, not on how many groups you’ve joined or how many online friends you have.  It’s marvelously open-ended!

As you’re selecting which (if any) networks to join, keep in mind what level of privacy you want to protect with respect to your contact information.  Linkedin, for example, allows its members to select what kinds of business contacts they want to receive or exclude.  Also keep in mind that social networking is one tool among many.  It doesn’t replace the other tools, but just adds an extra dimension to increase your visibility.

Tips, part 5 (coming soon): blogs.