It’s 1998, I’ve graduated from university with an Honours degree and it’s time to step out into the real world to find my first real job. Now, fast forwarding 20 years to 2018, I take a look at how things have changed for jobseekers, to a process that is now barely recognisable.
Back in 1998, you would have to set time aside to look for your next role. Usually, after work one evening or at the weekend and the first step was to pick up the newspaper and trawl through the adverts. Quite often this was a once a week publication, if it was a local paper, or if it was a national print, certain days were popular for advertising the latest openings. And to make things worse, there were no classifications. All jobs, accounting, engineering, plumbing, IT, or whatever were all bundled together.
Secondly, most people only produced one version of their resume back then. What was better known as a Curriculum Vitae, or CV, it was mostly printed and sent in the mail or even handed over to reception for the attention of the “Personnel Officer”. CVs were often quite lengthy documents too, outlining every job you’d had since leaving school.
If you were selected for an interview back in the day, they were fairly straight forward. Often, you’d be invited in to answer a series of questions to an interview panel including the HR team, the hiring manager and somebody from the team. The questions would be fairly straight forward, with candidates needing to demonstrate they had the previous experience and qualifications to be able to do the job.
Technology has changed every part of the process. And not just computers, but phones too. I last heard that something like 80% of jobseekers use the mobile apps to search for their next role. People are looking at opportunities at any time of day now, on the way to work, at lunch or when they’re heading home.
So that part is significantly easier. However, the actual application process is now much more detailed.
When applying for a role these days, it is often recommended that candidates tailor their resume to the requirements of the role, rather than keeping a generic resume for every job. You need to think about what skills and experiences you have, that can be specifically applied to the role you are applying for. Another reason for tailoring the document is that many firms are now using technology as the first part of the filtering process, so candidates need to ensure that their resumes contain key words that appear in the job advertisement.
When your resume gets in front of a human being though, it needs to be presented in a more professional style than in the past. It should highlight your achievements and demonstrate what you have done for your employer that was above and beyond what they expected from you when they offered you the job. I read recently that some recruiters take just six seconds to review a CV. I find this hard to believe myself, as I know that when I am reading resumes, it takes me longer than that to read your name, address and date of birth. I believe most recruiters take around 30 second to decide whether to call a candidate or not, so the presentation needs to grab the eye.
Once you are selected for an interview, the preparation process is far more detailed. With so much information online, candidates need to research the company’s website, read up on news releases, understand the industry and know who the competition are. You need to spend time looking at the backgrounds of the people that you’ll be meeting, by viewing their LinkedIn profiles. And once you have completed the face to face interviews, we are often faced with a range of testing. Many employers now use psychometric or personality assessments and many continue to test potential employees on the IT skills with online skills testing.
I should admit from the outset that this topic is one that is very close to my own heart. When I posted the poll on Facebook last week – How do you like your desk: Streamlined Order or Organised Chaos? – one of my ex-colleagues left a comment along the lines of “Kate has the neatest, most clutter-free desk I have ever seen in my entire life”.
To further illustrate this, do you know what I spent two hours doing last night? Pulling out each and every CD I own (a couple of hundred) (yes, I have CDs, I am that old. I even have LPs … far out), deciding which ones I did not want any more, and then putting the rest back again in neatly stacked columns, but not before grouping CDs by the same artist together, of course.
Sure, this might be an extreme example, but I know I am not alone in my quest for an orderly existence.
68% of respondents to last week’s poll said they like their work desk to be kept in “streamlined order”, whiles 32% said their work desk more closely resembled “organised chaos”.
Now, I think the word “organised” in the latter option is interesting to note. As one respondent said (a trifle defensively, perhaps, but still), “To an outsider looking in my desk may seem chaotic, however, there is an order and a working system in the organised chaos. Volume of work creates that outcome sometimes, and I think streamlined order can reflect not enough work and too much time to tidy.” Along the same lines, another responded, “although I have paperwork and piles everywhere I know where everything is.” Yet another resorted to the old chestnut, “a clean desk is sign of a sick mind”. What is that about? I much prefer “tidy desk, tidy mind”.
Are you the kind of person who thinks a messy desk makes you look busy and important? Consider what your desk says about you, and the impact it has upon your productivity. If I had to waste time trying to find things 75 times a day, I would get less done, be more stressed, waste more time, and cost my boss more money.
“According to OfficeTeam, a US-based recruitment specialist, a messy desk could reflect poorly on your professional reputation. Polling more than 500 human resources managers, the survey found that 83% of those surveyed felt the appearance of an employee’s workspace affected how they perceived that person’s professionalism … ‘A tidy desk won’t necessarily boost your career, but a messy one can leave a bad impression on colleagues,’ says Robert Hosking, executive director of OfficeTeam. ‘By taking simple steps to organise your workspace, you also will be able to find materials more easily and increase your productivity.’” [Source]
Of course there are different levels of disorder. A few piles of paper and folders is one thing, but this:
is quite another.
I mean, if you work alone, fine – do what you want. But, as always when working with others, it is about striking a balance between conducting our work in a style that suits our preferences with not impacting or encroaching negatively upon the work spaces and preferences of others. Considerate behaviour, in other words. What a revelation!
Our new poll is live! Tell us: how much does positive thinking influence your outcomes? Results published in next week’s ChallengeBlog …
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Our Guest Blogger this week is Challenge Consulting’s Organisational Psychologist Narelle Hess …
Challenge Consulting recently facilitated a discussion forum to explore the purpose, value, and practice of performance reviews with a group of Division Managers, Human Resources Managers, Executive Managers, and Business Owners. Our participants began with a view of performance reviews that was decidedly beige, consistent with our recent poll result (68% of respondents rated their performance appraisal as a waste of time), and Samuel Cuthbert’s famous slamming of the performance appraisal.
So why are organisations implementing performance reviews? Our participants described many strategic aims of their annual process, including:
• motivating employees and to help them grow professionally
• developing individual goals to support organisational strategy
• creating an organisational culture of high performance
• helping employees understand their role
• calculating bonuses
• developing training and development plans
• informing succession planning, and
• predicting salary growth.
With such strategic aims of performance reviews, why are they still seen as a waste of time? Or as Fetzer (2008) put it so nicely – “a review is looked upon as onerous and bureaucratic procedure that wastes time because little, if any, productiveness is achieved during one. It is performed solely as a requirement of the organisation to have a box checked as ‘completed’ and then forgotten for another year.” *
Can the performance review be resurrected to produce the strategic organisational aims it aspires to OR will it remain to be seen as a bureaucratic procedure that wastes time and causes demotivation and low productivity? The consensus across our group was that there was a place for a performance review, but it had to have a clear, measurable purpose, part of a larger performance management process (and not just a once a year check box), and add value at all levels. (Challenge Consulting can help with the implementation of strategic performance review process through our in-house professional development Performance Management Workshops.)
But what about you? As you are about to enter performance review season and sit down with your manager – how can you ensure this process is not a waste of your time? Tiffany Whitby, Challenge Consulting Consultant, recently attended a seminar with Lois Frankel (author of “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” and associated publications) – where she recommended 6 weeks before your performance review to write a summary of your key achievements since your last review and email your manager saying something along the lines of “I know how busy you are and, since I have a performance review coming up, I have put together a list of my achievements since our last review”. (Tiffany will be sharing more of her insights from this seminar in next week’s blog post …)
Last year, I had the opportunity to present at the “Reinvent Your Career Expo” on how to use your performance review to help your career. The performance review can be used as an opportunity to help you manage your career, when you actively participate in the performance review process:
• there is higher consistency between your manager’s and your appraisal of your performance.**
• you are more likely to feel like you have had an active voice and more satisfied with the outcome of your performance appraisal.***
To be an active participant in the appraisal process, prepare for your meeting by considering:
• your key achievements (i.e. feedback you received, KPIs you achieved, new processes that you developed / implemented, or awards you received etc.)
• aspects of your role that you have performed best (i.e. tasks people always ask you for help with, tasks you finish fastest, or that you do without thinking about) – what projects would you like to be involved in the next period of time?
• aspects of your role that you would like to do better (i.e. tasks you need help completing or tasks you tend to put off) – what could help you perform these aspects of your task better – tools / training / change in role?
• What feedback do you want to give your manager to help you to be able to better perform your role?
• Be involved in the goal setting / developmental plan process – what skills do you want to develop in your career?
• Between reviews, bring out your record of your review to review your success towards the plan you made for yourself.
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* Fetzer, J. (2008). Building a professional career: Improving the performance review. Biological and Environmental Reference Materials (BERM 11).
** Williams, J. R. & Johnson, M. A. (2000), Self-Supervisor Agreement: The Influence of Feedback Seeking on the Relationship Between Self and Supervisor Ratings of Performance. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30: 275–292.
*** Cawley, B.D., Keeping, L. M. & Levy, P. E. (1998). Participation in the performance appraisal process and employee reactions: A meta-analytic review of field investigations. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 83(4), Aug 1998, 615-633.
