The role of coaches and mentors

Coaching has a tactical focus with coaches working with managers for short periods with a targeted program based on specific role requirements or capabilities that require improvement. A coaching program may run for as little as a week or for some months and may have break points where the manager has time to implement what they are learning.

Mentoring is more strategic in its intent with mentors working with managers over a longer period of time on a broad range of managerial issues. It is not uncommon for managers to have a mentor or mentors throughout their careers which provides them with the guidance they need to take on roles of more seniority.

Coaches and mentors can be career savers as they provide practical guidance as to how to approach a wide range of issues that can have a significant impact on your career progress.

Working with a mentor or coach

There are times when you need to call on others to help you work through issues in your current role, upskill in a particular area or provide guidance on your career path. Coaches and mentors offer valuable advice providing the guidance to help with immediate challenges and long term career planning as well as alerting us to possible risks and how to manage them.

Coaches and mentors vary in the scope of their services and their relevance to you requirements. It is important that if you consider working with either a coach or mentor that they have not only the requisite experience, they are across critical management issues and have a disciplined and proven frame work.

Not so long ago coaches and mentors had no training and their advice was given on an ad hoc basis drawing on their own experience. This approach may have had some benefit if dealing with practical problems that could be addressed relatively easily. However many were unable to properly address problems with underlying psychological complexity. Behavioural issues including motivation and resilience require a targeted approach with a well thought out methodology supporting them.

While there are a plethora of credible frameworks, Google’s brain science based approach has a methodology that has significantly up-scaled coaches and mentors programs drawing on mindfulness and emotional intelligence to build resilience and a positive approach to leadership. It is an approach that has proven effectiveness in not only facilitating the development of critical leadership capabilities. It also is a powerful framework to help you keep career path on track and manage the significant challenges you will encounter along the way. If you want to learn more about this program take a look at the Google website under the ‘Search inside Yourself’ program or contact a certified practitioner. Jo Wagstaff a former senior financial services industry executive being one of those.

Case Study

A senior executive who had just secured a new role found himself struggling with his new team who had been together for the previous five years and had been loyal to the previous incumbent who had been unceremoniously exited from the company. He found it hard to gain the team’s support and felt that they were doing everything they could to undermine him. On the verge of resigning a friend introduced him to a former senior executive who extensive managerial experience in Australia and the US. After their first meeting the manager walked away with some constructive strategies for building trust in his team and from then on the two met on a monthly basis to review his progress and refine the strategy where required. Three months in to the role the ice had thawed and he felt he was making real progress and in six months he thought that any barriers between him and the team were completely gone.

Career strategies should be seen as a mind map where there is multi-dimensional approach that offers a great deal of flexibility so you can pivot when you need to. Within your career strategy you should make provision for a risk management framework that will help you navigate the challenges that you will encounter along the way.

Read Part one of Avoiding career crash and burn.

Read Part two of Avoiding career crash and burn.

The post Avoiding career crash and burn – Part three appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Leadership

Leadership can present the greatest of challenges particularly when a business is under pressure to perform and a manager’s decisions can lead to disquiet, uncertainty and disruption. How you handle decision making can be a make or break point in your career and you need to be prepared to meet this challenge.

Direction

Teams need direction and it is critical that you are clear about what you want done and make sure that everyone on the team knows what is expected of them. A common pitfall is changing direction mid-stream with little or no explanation. This leads to confusion and questions may arise from team members about whether you are in control. This unease can filter through to other areas in your company and can lead to uncertainty about your leadership. If it becomes an on-going pattern of behaviour it may result in you being overlooked for promotion or even worse you are demoted or sacked.

Motivation and Resilience

If you lack motivation you are seen to lack commitment to your work and to your team. All of us feel demotivated at times for a whole range of professional and personal reasons, but you need to be able to look at coping mechanisms that will not only get you through the rough periods but re-energise you bringing the focus you need to actively engage in your role.

Coping mechanisms can extend to practice based resilience strategies that are designed to take on particularly tough challenges whether these are work related or are occurring in your private life. If you consider the worst possible outcomes in a particular situation then map out the ways you can deal with the problem. For example, if you are dealing with a challenging client rehearse different approaches including conversations you may have with that person. As you get in to the rehearsal you will find that you’re confidence builds and the difficulties of dealing with this client are less exacting than you previously thought and with this your confidence in your own ability returns.

Sometimes we find ourselves sucked in to a vortex of negativity; this may come from a range of factors including poor morale within your team or across divisions, increased workload demands or a new boss who seems to enjoy applying the blow torch at every possible opportunity. Your ability to identify coping mechanisms and build your resilience may seem beyond your reach, however reaching out to those who have relevant skills and experience is a critical step in you getting back in control. Colleagues with relevant experience or a professional coach can be of great assistance and we will discuss their role in part three of this article.

Case study

A financial planner was promoted to team leader and with no experience managing people struggled to make the transition from a member of the team to the manager. Every day he was confronted with a plethora of management problems that he found confronting and when asked by HR if he would like to undertake a management course he jumped at the opportunity. The course became a lifeline as one of the lecturers focused on a range of issues that first time managers have to deal with and his workshop was interactive allowing participants to role play different scenarios. When he returned to work he found he could cope with the issues that had previously confronted him and after his first review was awarded a bonus which was weighted to how effective he was as a manger.

The starting point is that you are always more resilient than you think and if you have taken steps to build mechanisms in to your risk management strategy that help build your confidence and your resilience then you will be in a strong position to gain control and get to where you need to be.

Bolstering your network

Having a strong industry network provides access to colleagues and other senior executives who may at some stage be of assistance to you whether this is with issues that arise in your current role or your future career progression.

Networking is however what you make of it and it is important that you take the time to not only build a network of relevant people but actively nurture it. Active participation and engagement with others in your network can help you in your career journey and can be a useful risk management tool.

If you take into consideration that seventy to eighty percent of jobs are filled through networking then you should invest time to ensure networking forms a critical part of your career plan. It should also be part of your risk management strategy as someone in your network may offer you your next career move when you most need it.

Read Part one of Avoiding career crash and burn.

Read Part three of Avoiding career crash and burn.

The post Avoiding career crash and burn – Part two appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Once we are ensconced in a role, all too often our focus is on the day to day challenges in our job and in particular meeting KPI’s that will help determine our future prospects. Its full steam ahead and there is little thought given to what could go wrong.

Career planning, while intended to help you lay out a road map to assist you meet your expectations, should also have a focus on critical risk management issues that can derail your career and relegate you to the sidelines.

Over the course of the last fifteen years I have interviewed a wide range of senior executives and business owners and the common thread running through the conversations is that they while most had a clear idea of where they wanted to take their careers, few had a strategy to get them to where they wanted to be. When it came to risk management none had given any thought to what could go wrong and they agreed that incorporating a risk management strategy in to their career plan would have been useful in avoiding some, if not all, of the pitfalls they encountered along the way.

Controllable and uncontrollable risks

While it is possible to mitigate risk there are some risks that you will find out of your control to the extent that some you will not even know about until they are brought to your attention and by then often it’s too late. These risks can range from a change in company policy that you have no input in to or a stakeholder who remains intransigent even when you bend over backwards to gain their support.

However, there are many risks that you can plan for and take action to control or at least reduce their impact. It’s all about the planning and being on top of the moveable feast of issues that may derail your career progress.

Establishing a risk management framework requires taking a robust approach to risk assessment and includes a broad range of issues that are either related to your capabilities and approach to the work environment and the role of internal and external stakeholders can play in you being successful in your job.

Risk management needs to be in your DNA

The starting point is to undertake a personal audit to ascertain a range of issues related to your capabilities and job fit. I have discussed the key points you should address in a personal audit in the AdviserVoice article ‘It’s not just a job – It’s your career Part Two’.

Once you have conducted your personal audit then you can look at how best to arm yourself against the risks that are in your control and be more aware of those you can’t control. At the core is your ability to identify areas where you can capitalise on your capabilities and make real and sustainable changes to the way you manage your behaviour and approach to the work environment.

Communication

If there is one skill most of us think we are good at is communication, however many people lack a consistency in delivering a message or may come across as vague or at worst are seen as abrasive. I know one general manager who prides himself on his communication skills. ‘’I tell it the way it is so my team knows what is expected of them’’. However I also have known members of his teams who have another version of his approach which they describe as bordering on belligerent.

While the art of communication comes naturally to some it is challenging to others and like the general manager there are those who are clueless as to how their audience is hearing them. It is helpful for all of us to ensure that our communication skills are at a professional level and that those we are communicating with are comfortable with how we are communicating with them. Otherwise we face the risk that we are unable to get our message across effectively, which will invariably impinge on our performance as judged by our managers and colleagues alike.

Stakeholder engagement

Those with experience with stakeholder engagement will tell you it’s all about influencing people and involves not only communication skills but the ability to bring stakeholders on board with you. While you may be an effective communicator you may not have the skills to engage with stakeholders to the extent where they are comfortable in offering their commitment.

The most challenging projects involve a broad range of stakeholders who often have preconceived ideas as to how best approach the management and direction of a project. Every project seems to have at least one person who questions everything to the extent that they can threaten to derail the project or significantly delay its progress. This leaves you in invidious position where you are not seen as up to the requirements of your role and the ramifications of that can lead to you being sidelined and your career stalling.

Effective stakeholder engagement requires an understanding of the stakeholders you are dealing with and what they see as hot and cold button issues. This requires an element of behavioural psychology and an ability to seek out the motivations of the parties you are dealing with so as to gain their trust and get them on board.

In part two we will discuss leadership, motivation and resilience and the role of adopting thoughtfulness in your risk management framework.

Read Part two of Avoiding career crash and burn.

Read Part three of Avoiding career crash and burn.

The post Avoiding career crash and burn – Part one appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Make your CV stand out to snag that interview.

Your job search

This is all about mapping out a plan to ensure that you are in the best position to identify opportunities and capitalise on them as you progress through your search program.

Good candidates can be eliminated from contention for a role due to:

• not investing enough time in researching the opportunity.
• a lack of consistency in their communication with the employer/recruiter through the recruitment process.
• their underperformance in the interview process.
• referees providing underwhelming feedback regarding their capabilities and performance in their previous roles.

To increase your chance of success you need a focused and flexible strategy that provides you with the tools to capitalise on your strengths and avoid unnecessary pitfalls. The first step is to prepare your CV.

Making your CV stand out

Your CV tells the reader a great deal about you, especially if it is well thought out in terms of effectively communicating your capabilities, achievements and motivations. It is important that the content is relevant and succinct. Candidates often make the mistake of thinking they must include the details of every position they’ve held in a great deal of detail. Those with long careers often have tome-like documents that cover outdated and irrelevant information.

When reviewing your CV it is important that not only is the information relevant and up to date but that it doesn’t contain any anomalous information. This maybe something that you didn’t think important, such as only listing the years of employment in each position when you should include the months as well or listing a university course without stating whether you have completed it.

Lies by omission are common in CV’s and employers and recruiters will react negatively when they come across them. It is not unknown for candidates to doctor their histories in terms of length of employment, altering their position titles, responsibilities and achievements academic qualifications and have even embellished their contribution to volunteer work.

TIP: The golden rule here is to be totally honest and thoroughly cover all key areas included in your CV as incorrect information will often be discovered at interview or during the reference process. Also, any lack of clarity will make it harder for you to convince a potential employer that they should hire you.

The CV checklist

Executive Summary

Keep your executive summary to a paragraph positioning it at the front of the document. You need to convey your career focus, what motivates you and what you can provide an employer in terms of skills and capabilities. Avoid platitudes and corporate speak. This is your chance to position yourself as a highly committed and effective candidate who will add significant value to a company.

Dates of Employment

Ensure dates of employment are continuous. If there are gaps between roles, ensure you have a plausible explanation. Don’t ‘smooth’ dates of employment. This involves covering up periods of unemployment by altering the dates or only including the years employed and omitting months.

You may have overlapping positions in a given time period. This may be due to a transitional arrangement where you have moved from one role to the other or where you took on the responsibilities of another role and had two position titles. Ensure that you explain this including how you managed both roles and/or made the transition.

Responsibilities

Ensure you include all responsibilities for each position and ensure your description is an accurate account.

Achievements

Where possible, achievements should be quantifiable, for example, increasing clients/revenue, opening up new business channels, improving efficiency, reducing costs – giving figures where possible.

Non-quantifiable achievements, such as implementing workplace culture change programs, can be harder to quantify, as there may be no measurable outcomes but you may want to include formal feedback from stakeholders if available.

Academic Qualifications

Ensure that the courses you list in the CV are shown as completed stating the year of completion or if you haven’t finished a course the units of study you have completed.

Industry Memberships

When listing memberships in industry associations ensure that they are current and haven’t lapsed. Also make sure you level of membership is accurate.

Interests

Over the last five to ten years there has been an increase in the number of candidates who volunteer their time to not-for-profit organisations and list these activities on their CVs. Employers and recruiters look favourably on this commitment and you should include all your voluntary work in short form.

The Interview

The first interview is like being the lead actor in a play. You shine and the play will be successful; you trip over your lines and the critiques will be unforgiving and the play will close soon after opening night. It is therefore critical that you prepare your interview strategy which includes anticipating questions that may be asked and having a thought out response. It also means making sure that you are across everything in your CV as the interviewer will use it to ask you questions about the roles you have held and the achievements in each role.

Some of the key interests of interviewers are how you went about what you had to do, what you brought to the table in terms of new ideas and how you achieved what was expected of you in your role. If you have been responsible for quantifiable targets make sure that you have the numbers accurately embedded in your brain and how in each case you achieved the targets. Also if you have managed teams make sure you are able to clearly articulate your management philosophy and style. Be ready to provide concrete examples about how you dealt with high achievers in your team and those who may have proven problematic.

You need to be engaging and show consistent interest in the role throughout the interview process. Additionally, you should be at all times positive in your remarks, particularly if you are addressing issues about a past employer (even if you would like to sink the boot for justifiable reasons). Negativity is a deal breaker as it reflects on you and how the employer may see you fitting in to the existing team.

It is not unknown for interviewers to put a great deal of emphasis on curve ball questions using follow ups to chase down particular motivational or values based issues. However, they can be also problematic for the interviewer unless they have considerable experience in interviewing and understand how the questions can be best formulated to illicit responses that will provide the information they are seeking.

For the candidate it is important that they take a cautious approach particularly when asked questions that they are not comfortable with. Navigating your way around some of these questions may also reflect negatively on you as the interviewer might think that you are trying to avoid giving a truthful response.

If you are not sure how to answer a particular question then tell the interviewer, explaining your reasoning. If he/she is not able to assist then either tell them that you are not comfortable with the question or answer to the best of your ability without compromising yourself.

The key to success in managing your job search is contingent on the time you invest in preparing a methodical and disciplined campaign. Your job search, however, should not be conducted as a standalone process but should form part of your career strategy. This will provide you the focus you need to ensure your career path gives you the challenges and fulfilment that are the cornerstones of a great career.

This is an abbreviated extract taken from It’s not just a job it’s your career by Peter Dawson written in conjunction with Susan Rochester, a senior HR practitioner.

By Peter Dawson

Read Part One here

Read Part Two here

The post It’s not just a job it’s your career (Part Three) appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Get the most from your career by doing a ‘personal audit’.

Having invested time in developing a career strategy is one thing but making sure that you maintain your focus can be a significant challenge. Having the appropriate tools to help keep you on track is critical to your success in making progress throughout your career. The personal audit is a tool that can effectively anchor your career strategy.

The Personal audit

The following questions are the starting point for your personal audit and are designed to assist you to identify the role of your capabilities, achievements and motivations when making career decisions. When tackling each question make lists and validate your reasoning with examples.

• What are my key capabilities?
• Which of my achievements have contributed most to my career?
• Where do I gather motivation from in my job and personal life?

To help you clarify your thoughts go back to your last appraisal or assessment and extract those capabilities where your bosses or teachers have rated you highly. Identify major tasks you have completed and projects that you have worked on. When you think of how you went about completing these, you should be able to identify capabilities you can add to your list.

When you think of your achievements some of them will spring to mind immediately as they formed milestones in your career. Some will be measurable such as meeting business targets or you may have introduced a new human resources policy that enhanced work life balance for management and staff. Your last appraisal will also be a good point of reference for this list.

Identifying motivations can be as easy as thinking through what you like about your job, your studies or other areas of your life. It maybe that you have autonomy to do your work as you see fit, you thrive on problem solving or it is being part of a team that motivates you.

Three things to keep in mind when doing your personal audit

1. Would I benefit from undertaking an objective personal assessment of my capabilities, achievements and motivations?
2. How could I effectively use the results to build on my career strategy?
3. Do I need guidance from a mentor or coach to review my career strategy and help keep me on track?

The danger in not taking an audit is that you take a narrow focus in considering career possibilities which lead to you making ill-judged decisions that you will regret. This may lead to overlooking roles and organisations that may prove to be a good fit for you in terms of career progression and personal satisfaction.

Job fit

As you consider different roles, use your personal audit list as a filter. If there is divergence between the role criteria for a specific job and your list then you need to consider if you are best fit for the role.

To make this assessment your starting point is to ensure that you fulfil the key selection criteria. From there, go on to pay close attention to how well your capabilities, achievements, motivations and values align with the requirements of the role.

Organisational fit

At the heart of organisational fit is the culture of the company which is comprised of the beliefs, values and behaviours that are set and governed by management under the direction of the board. Management is focused on aligning the culture of the company with its strategic aims, putting in place policies that set the agenda in terms of employee behaviours internally and dealing with external stakeholders.

Company cultures embrace and promote certain behaviours. Entrepreneurial companies will have high risk/reward focus and expect their employees to put forward their best ideas whereas a bank will have a more risk conscious culture and have a myriad of checks and balances to ensure that employees follow prescriptive policies that govern all behaviours.

Decisions about organisational fit are critical to the success of your career strategy. To assist you make an assessment of what type of organisational culture would suit you, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Would I be suited to an institutional business culture with highly defined roles and responsibilities or more suited to a business culture that is more personal and flexible and risk taking in its operation
2. Do I like rules and regulations to guide me in my work place?
3. Would I fit in to a culture that supports autonomy in my work?
4. Does the company have formal and informal communications between management and employees?
5. Is there a commitment to formal on the job training and sponsorship of educational courses?
6. Are there career pathways that are actively supported by the company?
7. Has the company has demonstrable community engagement and a policy of social responsibility?
8. Is there is a focus on work life balance?
9. Are there formal and informal employee forums and social activities?
10. Is the dress culture formal or informal?
11. Are there are employee benefits additional to remuneration? This may include time off for employees to engage in volunteering activities, payment of club memberships and journal subscriptions

Industry fit

It is not uncommon for people starting out to focus on an industry just because they know someone who is already employed in that industry. A family member or friend who is employed in a specific industry may talk about it being a growth industry with a diversity of career opportunities that are well remunerated. They may also be instrumental in making introductions to potential employers. Then, without taking the time to see if there are other industries that might better suit you the induction program has started and you’re sitting in the front row.

Sometimes people can feel as though they are stuck in the industry they are in because although they would rather work in another industry, they feel their skills and experience aren’t transferrable so they don’t take any steps to see if they can make the move. This doesn’t have to happen to you!

Whenever you have the opportunity, take the time to meet with a range of people in different industries. This is not a difficult task as each industry sector will run career information seminars, often organised by industry associations. These seminars and career expos often aren’t just for graduates but cater to a broad range of people who may already have careers in other industries.

In part three of this series of articles we will discuss the key ingredients in a professional CV and how to effectively manage the interview process.

This is an abbreviated extract taken from It’s not just a job it’s your career by Peter Dawson written in conjunction with Susan Rochester, a senior HR practitioner.

Read part one here

Read part three here

The post It’s not just a job it’s your career (Part Two) appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Managing your career can be the greatest of challenges you face in life.

Futureproofing your career starts with a career strategy designed to not only provide you with a road map to help you secure the positions that you are seeking but establish a framework that will help you navigate your career direction, identify and harness opportunities that you might not have otherwise considered and help you meet the challenges you find along the way.

The foundations of your career strategy

Managing your career can be the greatest of challenges you face in life. It entails dealing with your own personal aspirations that may at times seem beyond realisation due to a host of reasons; some of which are in your control and others that aren’t. To meet these challenges you need to invest time in developing a career strategy that includes the building blocks that will put you in the best position to get you to where we want to be.

While some people have their careers clearly mapped out others have few ideas beyond getting their first or next job. Planning for the short and longer term will provide you with a road map that may take unexpected turns at various points but will help you focus on getting the most from each opportunity that you are presented with and ensuring you keep your career path on track.

No matter where you are in your career, whether you’re looking for your first job or a next stepper seeking a new opportunity, your starting point is to ask yourself what you would like your career to look like in the short, medium and long term.

While most of us struggle with crystal ball gazing into the distant future it becomes easier when we have laid the foundations for the short to medium term. To ensure that these foundations have a solid base you need a framework that will enable you to gain an accurate perspective on your capabilities and motivations and achievements, all of which will underpin your career strategy.

Capabilities

Over time you acquire a range of capabilities some well-developed and others less so. It is important to understand your strengths and the areas that require improvement. While this may sound self-evident many people either overestimate or underestimate their capabilities and this often leads to performance issues that if left unchecked will have a negative impact on career satisfaction and inhibit advancement.

Your capabilities are evaluated through the employment review process that most organisations conduct on an annual basis. These assessments can be valuable tools in identifying your strengths and areas that need improvement, particularly when you are afforded the opportunity to obtain detailed feedback from your employer.

Whether you work in a large organisation or a smaller company, look for evidence of your capabilities in your performance reviews. It is important that if you use the results of such an evaluation it is sound in its design and isn’t an ad hoc tick box process.

If you are not yet employed, find other sources of objective measurement of your capabilities, such as course assessments, or feedback from your community involvement, such as sporting teams or voluntary work. This is all relevant information.

If you are unsure about the robustness of your assessment of your capability you will benefit from the expertise of career advisers or coaches. They can be a key part of your career path success and if there is a need for improvement in a particular area they will be able to assist you to address it.

Motivations

The importance of the role of motivation in our career and personal lives is reflected in the growth of the motivational advice industry which is now a global phenomenon. While motivational spruikers may offer some insight into how we can better understand what motivates us, most of what is imparted is a cocktail of home spun clichés that only offer little more than instant feel good moments. Their quick fix off the rack ‘solutions’ more often than not end up in the recycle bin as soon as the audience has left the adrenalin filled auditorium and is back in the real world.

Motivation is a personal issue and is determined by a range of factors, some of which are programmed into our DNA while others come from learnt behaviour. Occupational psychologists have conducted a myriad of studies on career motivation which point to a broad range of factors that instil and maintain motivation.

While some people are motivated by the challenge of building a business and taking their employees along on the journey, others’ motivations may lie in the satisfaction of doing the best at what they do no matter what that is. Alternatively, someone may find the day to day responsibilities offer them little stimulation but the interaction with their colleagues offers enough compensation to keep them motivated to perform well in their role.

Achievements

It is important that you give recognition to the importance of your achievements as they are a statement of your successes and often form benchmarks in your career path. Additionally, they will be scrutinized by potential employers who will expect you to articulate your achievements and how you reached your goals.

While most people are proud of what they achieve, often we think that they are of little or no consequence or we don’t see the use in reflecting on them because we are focussed on our next achievement.

There is considerable emphasis placed by employers on quantitative achievements where you are able to provide measurable outcomes, but it is also important to be able to articulate work where you have contributed to projects where the outcomes aren’t directly measurable but the results had a positive impact.

To ensure that you are able to maintain your goals and leverage appropriate career opportunities it is useful to have a process in place to help you keep your focus.

In part two of this series we will examine how a personal audit is a critical tool in your career strategy.

This is an abbreviated extract taken from ‘It’s not just a job it’s your career’ by Peter Dawson written in conjunction with Susan Rochester, a senior HR practitioner.

By Peter Dawson

Read Part Two here

Read Part Three here

The post It’s not just a job, it’s your career (Part one) appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Applying a high level of professionalism when dealing with job candidates will always reflect well on your business.

The financial services sector is full of smart people with high levels of competency; builders of successful businesses, investment gurus and guardians of retirement funds for current and future generations. They are innovative in their thinking, ready to embrace new ideas and most notably generous in their mentoring of the new wave of talent coming through the ranks.

I have seen firsthand the kindness of people in the industry when they have reached out to those who are struggling in their careers and personal lives and have given their time and money to charitable causes without taking any credit themselves. This is the Good of our industry and it is laudable and something that will hopefully remain in our collective DNA in to the future.

I was recently introduced to a young man who is currently in the second year of finance and actuarial studies; he had achieved consistently high marks through his course, he was the recipient of a scholarship that was keenly contested and was looking for an entry point for his financial services career. I contacted three business heads of Australian and US businesses and they all agreed to meet the young man just so they could give him some guidance. At the end of their discussions he told me that each executive had been not only been generous with their time but had provided him with useful ideas, one of which was to apply for a graduate intake scheme with one of the financial services companies. He showed me his application and two of the referees were those executives that he had met with. I have no doubt that he will gain that foothold he is seeking and will have a long and rewarding career in the industry and the generosity of those executives will play some part of that.

I am sure that there are many stories of young people treading a similar path of exploration, not knowing how to gain entry to the industry and through someone reaching out to them they have been able to secure an entry level position which may otherwise not have been made available to them. However, the flip side is littered with the not so kind and generous stories that are not a result of malice but more of thoughtlessness.

Business owners and executives who are involved in recruiting new employees are often facing a range of critical business issues that can distract them from the recruitment process and leave candidates with a poor impression of them and their businesses. Ineffective candidate management is where recruitment processes can easily fall over; at worst preferred candidates shy away from what could have been a great career opportunity for them and the business loses a high performance candidate who could have made a substantial contribution to the business.

I recently spoke to a general manager who applied for a senior executive role. The company had posted an advertisement on a job board and he sent his application through with the expectation that he would hear from the firm within a week or so. He asked me to take a look at the advertisement and to review his CV to ensure that he was a relevant candidate for the role. He had all the experience that was required and in addition had worked for both Australian and offshore companies in similar roles to the one advertised. After a week he called me and said that he had heard nothing and he called back a week after that and still there was no acknowledgment of his application. I suggested he call the HR manager who was the contact person for the role and after speaking to her he called me back telling me that they were proceeding with a shortlist of candidates and he would not be considered. This lack of professional curtesy was not even acknowledged by the HR manager and the candidate now has a very dim view of this firm which he has shared with former colleagues in the industry.

This lack of professionalism is unfortunately not uncommon and can be easily avoided if employers take the time to put in place some thought as to how they should treat candidates. I have a great deal of experience in dealing with large institutions through the SME’s and overall most get it right, but there are times when I have been taken aback by the lack of consideration to candidate management. From there being no acknowledgment of the application to no communication after initial contact, none of it is born of malice but to the candidate it may look like they are being harshly treated and for what reason?

A former colleague from my previous life as an executive was headhunted for a CEO role. He had been recently displaced from his last role due to a restructure and was taking time to do additional study. He was shortlisted for the role and then became the preferred candidate. Discussion with the chairman was focused on him joining the company, remuneration details were agreed to and references undertaken. The executive expected there to be a contract in the mail within a week and when it didn’t appear he called the head of HR who didn’t return any of his calls. He tried to get through to the chairman but the silence was deafening. The executive called me to tell me the story and said that he couldn’t believe that he was in this position after all he had gone through, however he is a resilient person and put it down to experience and moved on.

A fortnight later he called me to say that the contract had arrived and he was in two minds about what to do. I asked him to disregard how he had been treated and focus on the role itself. He ended up signing the contract and he served as CEO of that business for five years making a significant contribution to its growth. I recently asked him if he had taken anything out of he was treated when in consideration for the role and he said that one of the things he did when he took joined the company was to review the recruitment process and those responsible for managing it.

Sometimes it takes a personal experience for executives to understand the importance of ensuring potential employees are treated in a professional manner from initial contact through to contract execution and informing unsuccessful candidates that they have not been successful. When more executives get involved in ensuring this then there will only be good stories and we will not have the bad and the ugly.

In the meantime, I am looking forward to seeing the young man I met experience more of the generosity and thoughtfulness that is the mainstream of this industry and one day I hope to see him in a position in which he is able to draw on his experience to help others.

By Peter Dawson, The Dawson Partnership

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Best practice recruitment

Best practice recruitment includes the recognition that those undertaking the recruitment process are aware of the potential pitfalls of discrimination not only in terms of the risk of breaching the anti-discrimination laws but by engaging in discriminatory practices you may exclude the best candidate for the role that you are seeking to fill.

Large institutional businesses have invested considerable resources in framing anti-discrimination policies, adding counselling services and designing training programs that arm managers with the requisite tools to ensure that they are aware of discriminatory behaviour in recruiting new employees. However, even with all the educational programs, training and support from human resources professionals’ discrimination may still occur either intentionally or unintentionally due to the beliefs of the individual managers.

Small to mid-sized businesses (SME’s) that don’t have these resources can struggle to ensure best practice particularly when they are dealing with a multitude of client related issues while also having to manage the business. Additionally SME’s often have limited or no resources to support them when recruiting new employees and find the prospect of initiating a search for a new employee a daunting task. The challenge only increases when they have to move through the assessment phase and candidate interviews can quickly stray in to areas where discriminatory behaviour may not be intended but are included in the questioning.

Ensuring anti-discrimination measures are included in the recruitment process

Whether you are undertaking the recruitment process in-house or you draw on the resources of an external recruiter you should be clear as to what you need to do to ensure you reduce the possibility of discrimination occurring.

DIY – In-house recruitment

Unless you have considerable recruitment experience then you may be best served by engaging the services of a professional recruiter, however if you proceed to manage the process yourself you should invest the time in mapping out a thorough recruitment strategy.

The recruitment strategy will act as your guide through the process and will help you maintain your focus. It will also help you steer away from discriminatory thinking and behaviour by clearly defining the position requirements in terms of capabilities and experience and make you more mindful in terms of excluding discriminatory biases relating to gender, age, ethnicity and disability.

Mindful and methodical

The candidate identification phase of the recruitment process can prove challenging however this is compounded at the assessment stage and to effectively address these challenges it is necessary to have a structured interview questionnaire when interviewing. Apart from ensuring that you cover all the requirements of the position in a methodical manner it is also a risk management tool that helps keep you away from discriminatory questions.

The ad hoc approach to interviewing lacks rigour and facilitates a meandering approach that may stray in to discriminatory waters. The introduction to any interview commences often with seemingly innocuous conversation which may include family, interests or shared acquaintances. However, what may initially be innocuous can move to questions eliciting personal information about managing competing demands of work and family. Many women would find this familiar and unwelcome territory.

Post interviews you may be well served by adding all the candidates’ capabilities, experience and responses to your questions on a spreadsheet so that you can make an objective assessment of each candidate. At the very least you should have comprehensive notes of each interview to refer to. Resorting to memory is the Achilles heel of recruitment as it opens the door to errors and may lead to discrimination.

Being mindful of discriminatory practices is the first step in ensuring that you are undertaking a best practice recruitment process and adopting a methodological approach will keep you on track to delivering the best fit candidate for your business.

Example of gender and age discrimination

The CEO of an SME advice business needed to replace a member of the financial planning team who had taken up a role in another firm. The CEO saw this as an opportunity to hire a financial planner who had a focus on the SMSF market and added this in terms of capabilities and experience to the position description. The existing financial planning team was all male with the youngest being forty five years of age. The CEO decided that he would look for another male financial planner in his forties as he thought he be a good would fit in with the existing team.

The CEO lodged an advertisement on an industry job board and it attracted fifteen responses, six of which fitted the position brief. Of this six two were women in their thirties and the CEO immediately excluded them from contention. A personal issue arose which would take the CEO out of the office for a week and he handed the recruitment file to the office manager who was instructed to inform the successful and unsuccessful candidates and set up interviews. She took the time to read each CV and noted that the two women candidates had been relegated to the unsuccessful category and immediately called the CEO to clarify why they had been excluded. When he explained his reasons the office manager drew his attention to the women’s superior experience and qualifications and that had both been very successful in building client relationships.

The office manager was unrelenting and the CEO agreed to meet with both candidates if only to pacify her. On his return to the office he interviewed all five candidates and the short list of three included both women and after the third interview one was offered the role.

When the office manager asked CEO about his decision to hire one of the women he said that both women were very impressive in terms of their professionalism and their experience. He also admitted that he enjoyed the meetings with them and on reflection he should have put his preconceptions to one side as he believed either of them would work well with the team.

On meeting the other financial planners the new team member was given a warm reception with one of them saying ‘It’s about time we had a woman on the team after all this is the twenty first century’.

Engaging a recruitment firm

Most professional recruitment firms have significant experience in dealing with discrimination and have in place training programs for new consultants. However, small recruitment practices with minimal resources and large firms with high consultant turnover may struggle to ensure they provide a best practice recruitment service which actively addresses discrimination.

If you decide that you need help in recruiting a new employee it is important that engage a firm that is not only able to demonstrate a track record of success in placing like roles but that they have a robust recruitment process that addresses discrimination.

Discrimination is demeaning to potential employees and can deprive business of high performance candidates. Mindfulness is the key to avoiding the discrimination minefield, that and a robust structured recruitment process.

Peter Dawson, Principal, The Dawson Partnership
www.dawsonpartnership.com.au
 

Read Part one of Addressing the D word here

The post Addressing the D word – Part two appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Anti-discrimination policies go hand-in-hand with good recruitment strategies.

Recruiting the best fit employees for your business brings with it a multitude of challenges at each stage of the recruitment process. Discrimination is one of those challenges and is an important issue that is often overlooked when putting together a recruitment strategy. Discrimination can occur during each stage of the recruitment process from the initial phase of considering the requirements for the role through to making the final hiring decision.

When it comes to making recruitment decisions discrimination of one form or another will inevitably rare it’s head and if not identified and properly addressed may lead to a hiring decision that may not only breech anti-discrimination legislation but could also deprive your company of high performance employees.

Discrimination shackles our thinking to preconceived ideas that mar our ability to make an impartial decision about the merits of a candidate. Often discrimination is not overt with many employers not even consciously recognizing that they may have a bias.

The most common forms of discrimination are:

• Gender ‘Our team is a bit blokey and adding a woman would stifle the camaraderie within the team’ or ‘We’ve tried women before and it didn’t work out – soon as they settled in they either got pregnant or wanted flexible working hours that didn’t work for our business.
• Age – ‘They’re too old and wouldn’t have the energy that’s required in this role or ‘We have a young client base who wouldn’t identify with an older team member
• Disability – ‘We don’t have the support someone with a disability would need’
• Ethnicity ‘We like to employ people who have the same backgrounds and values as our own’.

Identifying discrimination in the recruitment process

The position description

While the introduction of anti-discrimination laws has made it more difficult to show overt discrimination when it comes to writing a position description, it is often in how messages are conveyed. While including a candidate’s required range age or gender have been relegated to the past there are some issues that can be discriminatory even if they don’t technically breech anti-discrimination laws.

Examples of discrimination that may be included in a position description:

• Including a specific number of years’ experience may deter candidates who have the required capabilities but have not been able to demonstrate them over the requisite period.
• Requiring a narrow range of qualifications which may preclude good candidates with relevant alternative qualifications.
• Roles that may be suitable for part time workers/job sharers are designated as full time roles with no time flexibility. This may exclude candidates with relevant experience from applying for the role as they are seeking more flexible working arrangements.
• Seeking people to join a young dynamic team excludes mature candidates who have successful track records of delivery and who could potentially provide valuable experience that could boost team performance.

In times past it was a common occurrence for employers to add in requirements regarding gender, religion and age and it was also commonplace for applicants to be told that they were unsuitable on these grounds. While discrimination on the basis of a candidate’s religion has been relegated to the past biases related to age, gender, ethnicity and disability remain.

When it comes to qualifying candidates pre-interview, making an assessment at interview and making the final employment decision then there remains the opportunity for discrimination to play a part.

• Pre-interview – This is the initial vetting stage where candidate’s suitability is judged on the basis of their application letter and CV. Age discrimination is enabled through the CV where it isn’t difficult to work out with reasonable accuracy a candidate’s age. Gender is a given as the applicant’s identity is provided. Race can also be identified particularly if the candidate is from a geographical region or country that has a high proportion of a particular ethnicity. Disability may also be identified through specialized training/support programs the candidate has been enrolled in.
• Interview – What some would think were innocuous questions can be discriminatory and breech anti-discrimination laws. Questions relating to woman’s family situation where the interviewer is attempting to ascertain whether the candidate is planning to have a family and at what stage are not an uncommon occurrence. While it is understandable that an employer is interested in knowing the commitment of the candidate to the role it is unacceptable to ask questions designed to draw out a candidates personal circumstances in this regard.

Candidates that are in their fifties can find they are asked questions about their ability to cope with the demands of a role – questions that would not necessarily be asked of younger candidates. Age discrimination is a major area of discrimination and often it is hard to identify as most of it is unspoken and often denied by employers even those that do discriminate against older workers for fear of being held to account.

At age fifty an IT systems analyst was asked at interview if he had a laptop; the inference being that as he had reached middle age he was old school and wouldn’t be a suitable fit for the role he was being interviewed for.

Candidates with disabilities may find they are asked questions focused on how they would cope working in a business that has few or no formal support mechanisms to help transition them in to the business and little on going support. While often there may be no intention to discriminate, concerns for the welfare of the candidate can turn in to reasons for them not to be considered for a role.

• Employment decision – This is the point where candidates are reviewed post interviews and an assessment is made of the most relevant candidate for the role. Gender, ethnicity, age and disability could possibly fall part of the decision and while in many cases discrimination will be excluded from the decision there will be times where it does.

While the financial services sector has a relatively high level of awareness about the issue of discrimination with large organisations having human resources practitioners who are well versed in not only the legislative aspects but also have adopted policies designed to actively combat discriminatory practices. However SME’s often don’t have these resources and can find this to be a difficult issue to deal with effectively.

While it is never possible to completely rid the industry from discrimination while there are those who bring their biases and prejudices with them to the recruitment process there are steps companies can take to raise awareness.

In part two of this article we will cover the design of a recruitment strategy that will provide guidance as to how to recruit the best fit candidates for your business while avoiding discriminatory practices.

Peter Dawson, Principal, The Dawson Partnership
www.dawsonpartnsrship.com.au

Read Part two Addressing the D word here

The post Addressing the ‘D’ word – Part one appeared first on AdviserVoice.

Use your social media networks to your advantage during recruitment.

Employers are increasingly using social media to source candidates with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter positioning them as an integral part of recruitment programs.

Even those employers with extensive networks will draw on these social media websites to uncover relevant candidates, or to access and build on the candidate profiles they already have as a part of their process.

Social media is also proving useful in leveraging talent that may be overlooked in a recruitment search process and is relatively cost efficient. Recognising the market for recruitment, some social media companies are now offering specific tools to conduct their searches and advertise roles.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn offers access to a broad range of candidates with many employers now including LinkedIn as a candidate identification and screening tool in their searches. While it can prove to be a laborious process building a large network on LinkedIn, increasingly employers are investing the time and resources to do so.

You can identify candidates in a number of different ways on the LinkedIn website:

• Offering invitations to Link In with candidates you are interested in.
• Posting paid job posts for positions you are seeking to fill. The cost per advertisement is minimal and is on the site for thirty days.
• Join groups where you think you will find relevant candidates and then engage in conversation with them.
• Use the network activity box (status box) to get the message out that you are in hiring mode. “Looking for a compliance manager. If you know someone please contact me”

TIP – Although social media websites offer access to candidate networks it is advisable not to take the information posted on these websites as totally accurate. It is important that you make further steps to validate candidate information and only use these websites as a part of your information gathering process

When you identify candidates you should check that they have:

• A complete and coherent profile. You will find that those who have adopted a diligent approach to their profile and have uploaded a photograph may prove more worthy of your attention than those with sketchy details and a sepia image of an egg as their photo
• Been recommended by colleagues, managers and clients with whom they have had dealings
• Connections to other candidates that may be of interest to you and are in LinkedIn groups that may be relevant to your networking focus

The candidates decide who they want connect to and it is not uncommon for invitations to be ignored or refused if the candidate doesn’t want to let someone link to them. If a candidate wants you out of their connections they can also delink you.

TIP – Set up your own corporate LinkedIn page to establish your business presence on the website and use it as a platform for your recruitment activity process.

Facebook

While Facebook may be helpful in locating industry colleagues, navigating the website searching for candidates can be a marathon effort that can be less than productive. This is often due to them either not having an active Facebook page or not including enough information to identify them with their professional work role.

If you decide to include Facebook in your recruitment process make sure you make the best use of your time by:

• Accessing the Facebook Directory to search for users, groups and relevant applications.
• Post a job in the Facebook marketplace. You are restricted from targeting specific groups however you can add a position description, define the job category, job title and even add your photograph or logo.
• Setting up your own corporate Facebook pages to establish and promote your company and the products/services you offer. You can also use your Facebook pages as a recruitment tool posting jobs that are available in your company.
• Post a Facebook advertisement that will specifically target your audience. You can input a range of key words about the position and the candidates who would be a possible fit for the role. Facebook is able to calculate how many users will fit your criteria narrowing down the universe of relevant talent.

TIP – If you decide to use Facebook consider how you can make best use of the site. Posting an advertisement is a good way to start as it is a cost-effective way of targeting your audience.

Twitter

Twitter offers a timely and succinct way to communicate with your audience; however you need to take the time to build a following. At a bare minimum you can use the 140 characters to get a message out to your followers who may in turn re-tweet your message to their followers and so on. If you have a role that you are recruiting for then you simply need to keep to a tightly worded message. For example, “looking for a practice manager to work with advisers with HNW clients in Sydney, suit ex-financial planner”.

Twitter has flagged that the 140 character limit will be increased so in time you will be able to provide more information in your Tweets.

To build a following you will need to develop a network of followers who will automatically receive your tweets and you theirs. Your starting point is making contact with colleagues, potential candidates and others in the industry who may be relevant to you in identifying and engaging with candidates. From there you can readily communicate with a growing follower base by:Tweeting on industry issues, posting articles you have read and re-tweeting other’s tweets.

• Keep a watch on followers and those you are following who are active on Twitter reading their tweets which may provide you additional insights in to their opinions and positions on industry and personal issues.
• Market your own events such as conferences you are sponsoring/speaking at or workshops you are running.
• Posting a position you are recruiting

TIP – When using Twitter to help you make a preliminary assessment of a potential candidate you should consider how they conduct themselves when tweeting. Do they have lapses in judgement by tweeting inappropriately? Or are they measured and considered with their personal brand and therefore more likely to be a good brand ambassador as an employee?

Researching Candidates

Social media invites the scrutiny of employers making candidates more visible than ever before. It is now used extensively to gain insights in to candidate’s career history and achievements though websites such as LinkedIn. This information is freely available and may include professional endorsements from colleagues and former employers.

Additional information is accessible through websites such as Facebook where candidates allow access and this may include details of personal interests and photo galleries that can provide further insight in to the candidate.

It has been known for prospective employers to reject candidates due to photos or comments posted by candidates on these websites, or alternatively, when they have posted their own comments or re-posted others comments on Twitter.

While there is a need for candidates to be careful about what they make available on these sites, it is equally important for those seeking information on potential candidates to be cautious about how they access this information. There have been a number of cases where privacy has been breached by those who have gained unauthorised access to personal information available only to family and friends of the person involved and have used this information to make a negative assessment of the person precluding them from a role that they might otherwise have obtained.

The use of social media is a powerful recruitment tool which will provide you with access to a broad range of candidates that you may not have otherwise identified. It is also a valuable tool when reviewing your candidate requirements as you may come across candidates with capabilities and experience that you hadn’t previously considered. Social media is cost efficient, relatively easy to use and has the capacity to identify the best fit candidates for your business.

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