How can personal development, training courses, etc improve your career?

In my experience, very rarely will a hiring manager hire someone just because they have trained on a certain technology or because they hold a certain certification. Certainly if the course or certification is a rare one, that might help your chances but typically hiring managers want people with hands on experience.

One of the things people often neglect to do is ensure that they properly describe their personal development and training endeavors in their resume using full words and also acronyms if they’re commonly used. If I held a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer designation, I’ll spell it out just like I did but also use it’s acronym MCSE in case someone does a search for “MCSE” only without spelling the certification out in full just so my resume would be picked up both ways.

Same goes with a degree like the MBA for example. Some people might think it’s pedantic but the truth is that people search databases differently and use different keyword searches to find job candidates so it’s best to cover your bases.

If you’ve recently starting using a certain technology or platform, have experience with a piece of software, have knowledge of certain protocols or have anything else that you’re working with in a hands-on way, you never know when it can come in handy and when someone might be searching resumes for people who have that skill. If you don’t have it listed properly in your resume, you may not be found but the person looking for someone just like you.

I was checking out a company’s website today and came across the management section where it profiles the senior managers who work there. I was reading over their bios and was checking out each person’s education to see what schooling they had.

I came across one profile that mentioned that the manager held a degree from a school I’d never heard of so I did a quick Google search and found that according to the website I visited, this school was no longer accredited. This is a polite way of saying that the degree is useless and probably not worth the paper it’s printed on.

Again, this took me 1 Google search which was completed in about 15 seconds including the time to read the article I found.

As a recruiter, I’m always skeptical when I read a person’s degree when it comes form a school I haven’t heard of. Certainly, if the person is from another country, that’s one thing. I certainly haven’t heard of every legitimate school on the planet.

But I seem to have a pretty good ability to quickly determine whether or not a school (and by extension its diploma/degree) is worthless just by looking at the name of the school and also its location. When you see a resume of a person who (for example) lives in the US and has a consistent track record of working in the US with no gaps in employment but who lists that they hold a recently-completed degree from a far off country in Europe or elsewhere, it’s usually a given that the degree was completed online which immediately causes a red flag to go up in my mind since online institutions are notorious for scams.

That’s not to say all online degrees are questionable but many of them are.

These days many “degrees” can be “earned” online and as mentioned above the value is often suspect to say the least.

With the Internet it also doesn’t take long to figure this stuff out so before you sign up and give you money to a diploma mill that cranks out degrees that might not be worth anything, ask yourself what it is that you’re trying to accomplish and then ask yourself how much value it really adds to your resume.

Since it’s April Fools Day today, I thought I’d mention an interesting lesson I learned from a teacher way back at the end of grade 6. Fortunately I wasn’t the only one who learned the lesson that day and even more fortunate that the joke that was played on us didn’t cost us anything but a bit of wasted time.

On the very last day of school, our teacher announced first thing in the morning that she had a surprise test for us and that it was an important one. Since we were moving to a new school for grade 7 the following September, the test was going to be an important indicator for our new school as to which classes we belonged in and which ones of us were good learners and which us were…not so good.

Or so we were told by our teacher.

Of course, it was the last day of school and besides, we were only in grade 6. It wasn’t like we were in high school or university, so we figured the test thing must be a joke.

Then the teacher started handing out the tests which looked about 15 pages in length if not more. That’s when we started realizing that perhaps she wasn’t kidding. This was real and we were actually going to have a test that we’d previously known nothing about.

After handing out the tests and after we’d all looked at each other trying to convince ourselves that this was a joke, our teacher reminded us about the importance of the test.

She then started reading the first page of the test out loud, a list of instructions for how to complete the test. I recall that the list was long, perhaps 30 bullet points in length and some of the statements were kind scary. They spoke about some of the things we were going to be tested on, stuff that we’d never even covered that year or in any other year for that matter.

At this point I think we all figured we’d were in big trouble.

Our teacher read the first few instructions and then told us that she wasn’t going to read them all and that we should first read all the instructions ourselves and then complete the test. She made it clear we should read the instructions completely and then do the test.

Instead, most of us – me included – simply flicked to the second page and started answering the questions.

About 5 minutes into the test, a few of us noticed one of the guys in our class had closed his test book and was sitting in his chair not doing anything but smiling. We’re looking at him wondering why he was smiling and why he wasn’t writing the test. Certainly he couldn’t have finished it so quickly? It was at least 15 pages in length.

Someone asked him why he was smiling and not doing his test and he just smiled and suggested we read the instructions. By this time, people in the class were openly talking out loud which was certainly odd and unexpected during a test.

I decided to take his advice, read through the instructions one by one as our teacher had also told us to do….and at about instruction number 20, figured out why my classmate was smiling. This instruction told us to turn to the last page of the test whereupon we were told in big black letters that the test was a joke and that we were to close out test book and just sit and wait for everyone else to figure it out.

By the time everyone had figured it out, some people were 5 pages into the test and literally had to be told it was a joke as they still hadn’t read the instructions.

Some of us have to learn the hard way from time to time.

Can your level of education hurt your chances at a job?

As a recruiter, I’ve seen instances where:

1. A person is considered to be under educated: I’ve dealt with several companies who won’t consider a candidate unless they have a certain level of education ie. a university or college degree. In some cases a certain level of education might be absolutely necessary (ie. if you’re an accountant, the company might require you to be certified) but in other cases it might simply be company policy that every employee needs a minimum level of education. I’ve even seen cases where hiring managers want to see candidates who have attended a specific school(s).

2. A person is considered to be over educated: I can recall several instances when a hiring manager declined to interview a candidate because they felt that the candidate was “too” educated or looking at it another way, too theoretical and not hands-on enough. Often, it’s when the person holds a PhD or multiple degrees and perhaps have more education than they do actual hands-on experience.

How can you strike a balance between the two?

To be honest, it really depends on your specific situation and the job you are pursuing.

While you don’t want to leave out your educational achievements, the truth is that how you present your scholastic achievements can effect your ability to get interviews and get jobs.

I’ve spoken with hiring managers who I’ve had to convince to interview excellent job candidates because at a first glance, the person’s resume appeared to the hiring manager to be too school-centric with not enough “real life” work experience on it.

When you’re putting your resume together, you really need to tailor it to the specific job you are applying for. Obviously if you are applying for a job in the education industry, listing all of your publications, papers and other similar items makes sense.

If you are applying for a job where your education is a “nice to have” or just a simple requirement, you need to focus on highlighting your real life work experience and use your educational achievements as something that might help to distinguish you from other candidates, not as the main selling feature.

In other words, you need to ensure you focus your resume to truthfully and accurately highlight what the employer needs based on what they are asking for.

With the end of the school year approaching in the next two months for many students, the search for their first job out of school has probably already begun. For recent graduates, getting your job search moving in a positive direction can be a difficult task.

If you’re thinking about using a recruiter to help you find a job, you might be out of luck. Most recruiters tend to only fill jobs that require candidates that have at least several years of work experience so you might not get much help from them.

For entry level positions, you might be competing with not only other recent graduates but with people with a few years of experience as well who might also be suitable for the job.

One of the best ways to get your job search moving positively is through networking.

Sure, you could email your resume off to dozens or hundreds of companies like everyone else does but remember that it takes one tenth the time to delete your email as it did for you to write it.

When hiring managers get bombarded with resumes they tend to delete them and treat them like spam.

There are better ways to utilize your time to get in touch with people who can positively influence your job search:

1. Speak with friends, family members and others who you know and let them know you are looking for a job. One of them might know someone who can help you.

2. Make a list of companies you’d be interested to work for and call (on the phone, not through email) the manager of the particular area of interest and ask to meet with them for 20 minutes to learn more about their company and job. It could lead to something more.

3. Attend networking events, trade shows or conferences that relate to your industry or field or expertise where you are likely to meet people who can positively influence your job search.

4. Scour industry-specific Internet job websites for jobs. Also search specific company websites to see what jobs they have available. Remember that when it comes to entry level positions, companies tend to like to fill these positions on their own.

5. Use technology wisely. Set up a professional profile with LinkedIn and similar networking websites (including industry-specific ones) to help advertise and promote yourself in a professional way. There are recruiters that use LinkedIn exclusively (!) to fill their jobs so you know that people do find jobs this way.

Holding an MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree used to be a virtual guarantee of a good job and high paying salary.

While the benefits of holding an MBA don’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get a better job and more money anymore, holding the designation can certainly help you in more ways than one.

I graduated from an undergraduate business program and found myself in the same classroom as MBA students during my senior year. We essentially took some of the same classes and I got to see firsthand how MBA classes operate.

Generally, classes were based on course work, case studies, exams, projects and class participation.

Verbally participating in class can be a big component of your final mark in MBA programs.

As a recruiter, I’ve worked with plenty of companies who won’t hire a new staff member if they don’t hold a certain level of education ie. a university degree.

In some companies, advancement to senior management could be at least somewhat dependent on holding a post graduate degree such as an MBA especially if other managers in the company already hold one.

In that regard, holding an MBA might help to qualify you for certain jobs that might otherwise be unattainable.

Among other things, an MBA can also help prepare you to compete in the business world by developing your communications and presentation skills, improve your ability to debate and get your point across in a business setting, and expose you to various business functions ie. finance, marketing, HR, etc.

Further it helps you to understand how each of these business functions work together and are correlated in the business world.

Another popular designation that gets a lot of press is the Executive MBA or EMBA something I discussed in an earlier post.

The worst career decision I made was about 10 years ago when I was in the process of starting to look for a new job, had convinced myself that I needed a career change, and was also convinced I didn’t know what to do next in my career and could use some professional help. This was a few years before I got into recruitment incidentally.

The worst career decision I made was to fork over a few thousand dollars to a well-known and well-established “career counseling” firm who have been around for decades and who used to advertise in the newspaper classifieds. This was where I first heard about them. I don’t even think they’re in business anymore although they may have just changed their name and rebranded.

They used a very old school hard sell approach with a breathtaking inability to actually deliver what they promised once you had signed up. They constantly spoke about the so-called “hidden job market” and although they convinced me that they would help me locate said hidden job market, it appeared that these jobs were so well hidden that even this firm couldn’t find any.

This company in a word was a joke. The office that I signed up with has since changed affiliations and now carries a different name than the one they used when I was a client. Clearly I wasn’t the only one who found them useless because they have since been investigated and referred to in various print and tv exposes.

They assigned a counselor to me, a nice guy who was otherwise not helpful other than being a guy I could discuss stuff with. I ran various things past him regarding my career but as I always scheduled my meetings with him at the end of the day, our meetings always had to occur in a way so he wouldn’t miss the first train home. Nice customer service.

Last month I made reference to the crappy resume that this company wrote for me. I stopped using the resume they created for me right away because even I could figure out it looked like crap.

Beyond that, there really wasn’t a lot offered in the way of help or advice. Their systems and processes were literally decades old and so outdated that it wasn’t even funny.

When I first started working with this company, I actually thought they’d be able to help me and I didn’t believe much of the sales hype I was told so I did go in with both eyes open.

I had decided to go with them because I felt I needed a kick in the pants to get my career moving in the right direction. Instead the only thing that got a kick was my bank account.

With money possibly tight especially if you’re still paying off Christmas bills, you want to ensure you spend money in the right place. I can think of a few things that people spend money on that can help them during job interviews and even during their career often from the time you make the purchase. Here are a few that come to mind:

Investing in education: Whether it’s going back to college or university or taking training courses, investing in your education can pay dividends now (ie. improved skills, something to add to your resume) and throughout your career too. Some options include improving your computer skills or communication skills or learning a new language. Being multi-lingual can often differentiate you from competitors for jobs and can open up positions that might otherwise be unavailable to those who only speak one language.

Investing in your health: Joining a gym (and actually attending on an ongoing and regular basis of course) is one obvious choice but there are plenty of others too that might not cost as much if money is an issue. Jogging is a great way to keep in shape and it won’t cost more than a decent pair of running shoes. Cycling is another option. If you live in a region where the current winter season means snow and ice, what about learning to skate, going showshoeing or cross-country skiing? They’re all great options and might help to make the winter pass quicker and with a bit more fun to boot.

Investing in technology: In many cases, getting a new cellphone, Blackberry or laptop computer might be simply cosmetic or it could be an important improvement to your job. Getting a GPS for your car can’t be a bad thing if you’re geographically challenged like I am either…especially if it means no longer have to print out Mapquest instructions or wasting time and gas trying to find where you’re trying to go.

Investing in your wardrobe: Or your hair, or your glasses, or your overall look. First impressions do count and you have one chance to make it. An outdated look, unkempt appearance or old crumpled clothing can cost you in job interviews and in other work situations.

Being an assertive person at work (and in your private life) is something that many people have difficulty with especially when it comes to learning how to say “no.”

We already covered my personal experience with assertiveness training. In my case I was looking to learn some assertiveness techniques to help me at work and in my life in general.

What if you’re the type of person who can’t say no at work? You can’t tell your boss that you can’t work late, you can’t say no when they want to dump more work on your desk, you can’t even say no when your friends want you to go out and you don’t want to go.

Learning how to say no when appropriate is something that will most likely be a skill that you need to use on a regular basis at work and in life.

Becoming a yes man or woman often ends up making things worse for you because not only do certain people realize they can get you to do what they want but you might end up becoming held in lower esteem by your peers who think of you as someone who can’t stand up and say no and is someone who can’t be relied upon to ever give an honest opinion because you’re too busy agreeing with them.

One way that people often deal with having a hard time saying no is to instead say yes when confronted by someone. Then they hope that the issue or problem will either go away or that the person asking for something will forget. Then as the deadline or due date approaches, they email the person or find some excuse to give them to make the issue go away. So then the person not only get a reputation for being a yes man or woman, but they also get the reputation as someone who is unreliable too. I’ve worked with people like this and I recall going to school with a few people like that too. These people are often very visible during group projects where each person takes a task and it’s obvious at the end who did their part and who didn’t.

Alternatively of course, the other option is that you simply agree to everything asked of you and then you go and do it which just perpetuates the problem because you end up becoming the person that everyone knows can’t say no.

What can you do to become more assertive?

One of the first things you can do to become more assertive is to stop saying yes right away. Instead of saying yes, you say that you want to check your schedule and think about what else you have on the go. I’ve found that people that try to dump stuff on others often do so because they’re looking for a quick fix and want to quickly find someone who is willing to say yes. If you don’t say yes, chances are that they might go away and try to find someone else.

Your attitude has a lot to do with it too. As mentioned above, it often comes down to what other people think of you. If they think you’re a pushover, some people will treat you this way. If they know you’re someone who has a backbone they’re likely to be more cognizant of who they’re dealing with.

Another thing you can do is to assess your current behavior. If you’re the type of person who is always volunteering to do things, pay attention to others close to you and see how they act especially if they’re people who don’t seem to be doing nearly as much as you. We’ve probably all been in those meetings or situations where a volunteer is required and no one is offering to help. After a few seconds of silence, are you the one who always puts their hand up to volunteer every single time? If so, why?

In this instance, it might help to politely remind your peers about what else you have on the go and to un-volunteer yourself. In other words, you remove yourself from consideration by briefly telling everyone that you’re already busy enough as it is and that someone else needs to take the lead in this instance.

In my experience, the first steps to becoming more assertive are to recognize that it’s an area you need to improve upon, become aware of your current habits and traits and to also think about how you project yourself in front of others. I’ve found that the likelihood that others can take advantage of you goes a long way in determining how much trouble you’ll have with assertiveness because the more of a yes-man or woman you are the more you’ll probably find yourself saying yes when you wish you were saying no.

If this doesn’t work, consider taking some training from someone who can teach you, just like I ended up doing.

I just read an online newspaper article that referred to how the area I live in will start cracking down on fake career colleges that charge students thousands of dollars and then deliver phony and in some cases virtually non-existent educations.

The article gave an instance where the newspaper who conducted the investigation had several of their reporters sign up with several of these schools and showed how one received a certification as a support worker after only two weeks of “classes” which basically involved watching DVDs and reading Wikipedia (!) handouts. The other reports posing as a student got one day of training and a certification to work as a security guard.

Fake colleges and universities are nothing new but they continue to exist and continue to charge people money – often thousands of dollars – for fake and phony degrees of certifications.

I worked for a computer training company earlier in my career and we found ourselves often competing with fly-by-night training companies that offered a cheap version of what we were offering and at the time I was working in this industry, we experience several of our “competitors” going out of business and in some cases their former students ended up coming to our company to continue their training.

Typically, they’d tell us about how they’d paid as much if not more money to these now defunct businesses and how they got an inferior product in return. We heard stories about the certifications that they were promised and when we saw the curriculum, we realized it was a joke and nothing to be taken seriously. Unfortunately these poor people had spend time and money and had wasted both.

When searching for education options, I’d stick with legitimate organizations and avoid the fly-by-night ones and ones that give you a bad impression. Often you can visit their website and visit their office in person to get a sense as to what sort of organization you’re dealing with. The computer training company I worked for encouraged people to visit our office and look around the training areas. We also offered people the opportunity to take a $259 class for free to experience things for themselves. We could offer up references that potential students could call themselves, too.

If the school you’re considering won’t do all of this for you before you sign up with them and fork over your money, I’d think twice about investing anything with them.

Mind you, even this doesn’t guarantee anything…the computer training company I worked for ended up filing for bankruptcy 1.5 years after I started with them just as the job was starting to go well for me!

In this case, many people ended up losing money on training that they’d prepaid for, so be careful when you’re prepaying for training that will be offered over a long period of time. Times are tough and even well-established companies are closing.

The only students that had any sort of recourse (I suspect) were those who paid by credit card and might have the opportunity to charge back or at least dispute the charge after the company went out of business since they’d paid for a service that hadn’t been delivered.