Career Kickstarter

Two Different Types of Employees

Within any business there are two different types of employees.  There's no difference between a huge corporation and a small business in this aspect - there are still going to be employees that fit these two types.

Type 1 - These employees have an agenda.  They may want to rise up to a higher position, or make themselves more marketable for future opportunities.  They start new initiatives.  They mention their ideas to management about how to improve the company.  They form relationships with coworkers they might not normally interact with.  They lead projects.  They raise their hands in meetings and say "I'll figure it out and get it taken care of."  They make things happen.

Type 2 - These employees literally watch the clock.  They do what their told and then waste the rest of their time sitting around and doing nothing.  They complain to coworkers.  The standard response when asked to do something new is "That's not my job."  They get their work done, but there's no new ideas, no progress or improvement.

I think there are a few employees that fall in between the two types that I mentioned.  Maybe an employee that falls into the second group presents a new idea once in a while.  Maybe one of the best employees gets in a rut for a period of time and just kind of "does his job."

The organizations that are going to succeed are those with the highest percentage of Type 1 employees.  Think about it for a minute.  Are you helping your organization succeed?  What kind of employee are you?

Set Up Your Own Google Profile

Fairly recently Google introduced a new tool to manage your online presence.  With so many social networks and other tools to be involved in online it's nice to have one place where you can store links to all of them.  Enter Google Profiles - and what better a place to store this information than the place where others can "Google" your name.  Here is my Google Profile.

Besides my blog, I've listed my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles as well as links to the Fellowship that I'm part of and the company I'm working for.  A lot of these profiles (especially LinkedIn and Twitter) show up in the first couple results when you do a Google search for "Bryan Povlinski."  However, with my Google Profile it lets me dictate exactly what I want to show when people search for my name.  I do wish that Google would display my profile at the top of the search results, but it can actually be found at the bottom of the first page.  I think this is important to have if you're trying to establish your personal brand online and set yourself up for the career you want to have.

Start a Side Project Outside of Work

The process of finding a job can sometimes be long and difficult.  I know I went through several weeks of 3-4 interviews per week with various companies during my senior year of college.  Once I finally got an offer and then eventually accepted it felt like I was home free.  My mindset was just that I could sit back and relax because now that I had a job I had it made.

I realize now that this was a pretty bad philosophy.  In college I was constantly looking for new opportunities to increase my chances of being marketable to the companies that I hoped to work for.  In today's economy, when employees are constantly changing jobs rather than working their whole lives for a single company, it's important for us to carry this mindset into our career.  Even though I have a job now it's not going to be my job forever.  It's important for me to maintain that mindset of preparing myself for my long term goals and making myself as marketable as possible for future jobs.

The first way to do this is to simply do outstanding work in your new job.  That has to be first and foremost because it's what you're getting paid for.  It's important because you want to gain the reputation of someone who always delivers.  It's also a good idea to seek out assignments or projects at work that are slightly outside of your comfort zone so that you're constantly growing, improving your skills, and learning new things.

The next way to make yourself more marketable is to propose a new project within your company.  Sometimes this is called intra-preneurship.  This is a great situation because you have resources and fellow employees to support you and help you achieve what you want.  Examples could be starting a new community service relationship in your city, starting a intramural team or sports league, propose a new revenue source that the company isn't currently using.  There are so many different ways to start something new so the possibilities are really endless.

Finally, my last and probably best idea for making yourself more marketable is to start a side project outside of work.  Again the possibilities here are endless and they don't have to be geared towards making money.  It should, however, be geared towards improving yourself in some way.  I think my friend Brennan puts it best when he considers it "something worth talking about."  What are you doing these days that's worth talking about?  Maybe you would like to have your own business one day (I do).  Start something small now.  Maybe you could start a non-profit organization based on a cause you're passionate about.  Maybe it's something completely different like training for a marathon or triathalon.  Maybe it's building a computer desk from scratch because you didn't have one for your new apartment.  Maybe it's creating a personal website and posting your resume and portfolio on it.  A great resource for building a personal website and establishing your own brand is Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel.

Now a good idea for starting something on your own is to find a close friend to do it with you.  It helps hold you accountable, and it becomes a lot more fun when you're doing something with a friend.  Your chances for success will likely be a lot greater when you're collaborating with someone instead of just trying to do everything yourself.

What are you doing that's worth talking about?  I'm interested to hear, and I'd also be interested on working together on any cool new projects.  Get started and have fun!

Find Time to Relax

The last couple months of my last semester at college were quite busy with final projects, tests, and other responsibilities.  Fortunately, my graduation was at the beginning of May and I scheduled my first day of work for June 29th.  This gives me almost 2 months without any serious responsibilities.  I think this is pretty important for me because it allows me to be rested and refreshed when I start my job.  Now, I'm not sitting around and doing nothing with my time off.  I've been working out quite a bit, playing sports as much as possible, researching a couple new business ideas, working on my blog, and catching up on some books I've been wanting to read.

One of those books I recently read was The Rhythm of Life by Matthew Kelly.  I highly recommend it to anyone because it contains a lot of useful tips on how to make your life better.  One piece of advice that I'd like to point out are Kelly's Three Instruments to find your rhythm in life.  The three instruments are:

1. Make sleep a priority

2. Find an hour a day for reflection in silence or prayer

3. Always take one day a week to forget about work and find creative ways to relax

I won't get into the reasoning behind the first two instruments, but the third was interesting to me because I haven't really set aside a day to forget about work.  In college, whenever things got really busy the weekend was usually the time for me to catch up on work and get some things done.  The problem with that is there is never a time to recharge and be fully prepared for the next week of work.  I particular liked a story that Kelley told in the book.

"There once lived a man whose name was Jude.  He was an apostle of Jesus Christ and was renowned throughout the region as a wise and deeply spiritual man.  People traveled great distances, venturing across foreign lands to seek his advice and healing.  One day Jude was relaxing outside his hut when a hunter came by.  The hunter was surprised to see Jude relaxing and rebuffed him to loafing.  It was not the hunter's idea of what a holy man should be doing.

Jude recognized these thoughts running through the hunter's mind and also noticed that the man carried a bow for hunting.  "What is your occupation, sir?" Jude asked.  "I am a hunter," the man replied.  "Very good," Jude said.  "Bend your bow and shoot an arrow."  The man did so.  "Bend it again and shoot another arrow." said Jude.  The hunter did so, again and again.  Finally he complained, "Father, if I keep my bow always stretched, it will break."  "Very good, my child," Jude replied.  "So it is with me and all people.  If we push ourselves beyond measure, we will break.  It is good and right from time to time to relax and re-create ourselves."  If you don't break from the tensions of daily living, they will break you."

I thought this was an enligtening story.  We don't always take time out of our lives to purposefully rest.  It's important to work hard to achieve your goals, but you'll get there faster and enjoy it more if you complement hard work with rest.

Making the Most Out of Your Career Decision

When we're faced with a major decision in our lives such as what job to take or what city to live in it feels like there is a right choice and a wrong choice.  We put a lot of time and thought into making that decision because we don't want to end up making the wrong choice.  When it comes to these major decisions I don't think there is necessarily a right or wrong decision, but rather it's what you make of the opportunity you choose is what really matters.  My story about my career decision that I had to make as a college senior reflects this philosophy.

As a college senior one of my biggest responsibilities during the year was to find a job upon graduation.  When I started college as a freshmen at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business I indicated that I wanted to major in marketing and management because, in my mind, marketing would let me work with other people vs. sitting by myself behind a desk doing accounting type of work.  During my sophomore year I was introduced to the idea of management consulting and became part of the rather prestigious program at our school called the Consulting Workshop.  Here I learned all about how to structure a case, give presentations, the MCEC approach to problem solving, and the fast-paced lifestyle that goes along with a job in consulting.  I decided it was the career for me, and tried to gear the classes and extracurricular activities towards improving my chances of landing a job in consulting.  I entered several case competitions and won two of them.  I joined the Kelley Consulting Group, became Vice President for Events and scheduled several recruiting events for our members to get exposure to consulting firms.  I also helped get a local consulting project going for a chamber of commerce.  I took an internship with GE Consumer and Industrial in their Information Technology program so I could have a better understanding of technology since a lot of consulting jobs are tech based.

However, there were a couple reservations that I had about working for a consulting firm.  First, I didn't particularly like the idea of traveling 4 days a week since I had a serious girlfried (who is now my fiance!) that I wanted to be with once we graduated college.  I also was unsure how I would ever leave a consulting firm once I got there if I was contiually working my way up the corporate ladder at a big firm if I was contiually getting an increase in salary.  I knew consulting wasn't what I wanted to do my whole life because the travel is not the lifestyle I would want.  I started to look for other opportunities outside of consulting to give myself some other options.  During my senior year I started to really become interested in the idea of entrepreneurship as I started reading entrepreneurship related blogs such as Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog and StevePavlina.com and books such as Think and Grow Rich, The Magic of Thinking Big, Art of the Start, and 4 Hour Workweek.

My job search consisted mostly of firms that came to Kelley to recruit, and I was extremely grateful for the outstanding interview options that were made available to me.  I also learned of the Orr Fellowship which is a program started by former Indiana Governor Bob Orr to keep talented Indiana college graduates in the state to help boost the local economy.  The fellowship is partnered with various small, start-up businesses in the Indianapolis area and each student is placed with one company in various capacities for two years.  I was really intrigued by this opportunity and eagerly submitted my application for consideration.  I also received interviews with many different consulting firms such as Diamond, Deloitte, ABG, Aprimo, Hitachi, and Alaris as well as a few non-consulting companies.  I spent a lot of time preparing for these interviews to make sure I had the best chance possible to get the job.  After going through first and second round interviews I received an offer from one of my top choices among consulting firms.  The people that I met through the interview process were awesome, and I even got to visit the office in downtown Chicago where we were treated to lunch and dinner and got the opportunity to meet several of the partners.  There was also a signing bonus involved as well as tons of perks like 25 vacation days, subsidized athletic activities, and a major focus on community involvement.  I had gotten basically everything I had wanted when I first decided consulting was what I wanted to do.

But it still didn't feel right.  At this point I still had to go through second and third rounds of the Orr Fellowship process, but for whatever reason I felt like it was what I really wanted.  It seemed like the best opportunity for me to learn and grow, and I liked the idea of being able to live in Indianapolis along with my fiance instead of traveling all the time.  At the same time, the training program for the consulting firm was widely regarded as one of the best in the industry and I had an outstanding opportunity to grow and develop myself there.  The other major factor was the salary.  The consulting firm was going to pay $25,000 per year more than the Orr Fellowship without even considering the signing bonus.

I had about a month to make my decision on the offer from the consulting firm and during that time I was still going through the interview process with the Orr Fellowship.  The more I interacted with the people involved in the Fellowship the more I liked them.  I also listened to a guest speaker in one of my classes explain that she had the philosophy of always taking the better learning opportunity over the better paying job.  She said that if a company can "buy" you at the beginning then they can move you around to wherever they want just with money.  This really resonated with me, and before the day of the last interview I had made the decision that I would take the offer from the Fellowship if I received one.  On the final day of interviews I met with 5-6 different companies involved in the Fellowship and there is a matching process that occurs after all interviews were complete.  The company that I listed as my first choice was Sigma Micro because of two distinct reasons.  First, I liked the people there better than any other company, and I felt like they would be the most willing to work with me on my career goals.  Second, I felt like it gave me the best opportunity to see how small businesses are run since Sigma Micro has a lot of small business clients that use the ecommerce platform.

I received a phone call the night after the interview letting me know I had received the offer from Sigma Micro.  I accepted the next day, and also had to call the consulting firm to decline their offer.  In some ways this might look like a poor decision.  I gave up an additional $25,000 and the chance to work with a large, well-respected consulting firm with an outstanding training program.  But I don't see it this way.  I have the amazing opportunity to work with a small, growing company where I can really make an impact.  I'll also get to work in several different roles and be challenged to learn things I've never worked with.  Plus, I won't be working 70+ hour weeks (like I would have in consulting) which will give me more time to advance my skills further outside of work and really get involved in my community.  The only way I made a bad decision is if I don't work hard and make the most of the opportunity I have with Sigma.  I'm excited about the possibilities.

I think this philosophy can be applied in many different situations.  When you're faced with a major decision don't fret too much.  Just go with your gut and then vow to make the most of your opportunity from that point on.

Finding Time When You're Busy to do the Things You Want

Even though this was my final semester and I was about to graduate my workload did not get much lighter.  After Spring Break I had a 30 page economic research paper to finish and big group projects in my marketing and entrepreneurship classes.  I was also working on the consulting project we did for the IU football program as well as making sure the Intramural Champion T-Shirt Design contest for the Intramural Sports Council.  Essentially, I had quite a bit on my plate, and during this time I didn't do anything with my blog.  The problem was that I had a hard time justifying time spent on my blog when I knew there was a lot more time sensitive work that I should be getting done.  Previously, I've had this problem when it come to going to the gym as well.  I have a hard time deciding that it's a good idea to wake up early to work out when I was up until 1am or 2am working on projects the night before.

Obviously, I haven't found a perfect solution for this problem yet since this habit of pushing aside activities related to my goals in favor of time sensitive tasks that I had to get done has happened quite frequently.  I do have a few ideas on how I can prevent this problem in the future.

 

How to Make Time for Your Goals When You're Busy

1.  Pre-schedule the time you're going to spend on "Have-To" projects

A "Have-To" project is something that you must get done for your job or for class if you're a student.  A "Want-To" activity is something like updating your blog, researching a business idea, or doing a workout.  It's helpful for me to set aside time each day for my "Have-To" projects and leave some additional time to do whatever I want.  When crunch-time comes for a "Have-To" project it's much harder to set aside additonal time, but it's important not to let it take up your whole day.  Once I have these projects pre-scheduled it helps me feel like it's ok to spend an hour writing a new blog post because I already planned to have that time available to do whatever I wanted.

2. Avoid distractions during "Have-To" projects

In order to actually get your "Have-To" projects done in the pre-scheduled time, it's important to be productive when you're working on the project.  Two major distractions for me have been television and the internet.  I found that I must turn off the TV during times when I'm working on something important because it's to difficult for me to stay focused.  The internet is also difficult to stay away from so I've cut back on reading articles and also started tracking my time spent on various websites.  A great application to do that is RescueTime.  It automatically logs how long you spent at each website throughout the day so you can see what sites are taking up too much of your time and adjust your habits accordingly.

3. Set aside time in the morning  for "Want-To" projects or before you start on "Have-To" projects

I've found that setting aside time in the evening to read a book, do a workout, or write a blog post is pretty difficult because I often work longer than expected on a "How-To" project and then when I try to get started on another activity I'm too tired to get much done.  This is why I've tried to focus on working out and reading in the morning and then setting aside some additonal time right as I get home from work/class for other projects.  This way I already have my "Want-To" activities done before I get into the grind of the "Have-To" projects.

4. Enforce a bedtime for yourself so you don't ruin tomorrow's plans

This has been a rule that I haven't followed very well.  I think this could be one of the most important ways for me to improve and to create more time for myself to reach my goals.  Too often I continue working on projects or reading articles until 2 or 3am.  If I have a workout planned for the next morning it's going to be a major struggle to wake up early and complete it.  Setting a defined bedtime is important because it forces you to stay on schedule with tomorrow's plans and tomorrow is just as important as today. 

5. Establish confidence in yourself to complete "Have-To" projects in the allotted time so the pressure of finishing them is gone when you're not working on them

The concept of "guilt-free play" is a big part of The Now Habit and it is defined as being able to enjoy your leisure time without thinking about work or feeling guilty that you're not doing work.  This is important because often I get into the mindset that I have so much work to do that I need to be spending every minute I have to finish it.  However, once I finish a few of my projects in the time that I scheduled I begin having confidence in myself that I'm going to complete the work no matter what.  So if I hang out with my friends tonight or I spend an hour writing a new blog post I don't feel bad about not working on my "Have-To" projects because I know they will be completed in the scheduled time.

This is an area where I'm still looking to make improvements.  What other ideas do you have to stay on track with your goals when life gets in the way and makes you too busy?

San Diego Trip

 

Turn Setbacks into Motivation

Tonight our intramural basketball team played in a semi-final game with the chance to go to Assembly Hall for the championship.  We made it to Assembly last year, and we lost a close game so we were pretty pumped up for this game so that we'd have the opportunity to redeem ourselves.  We were down by 6 at halftime, came back to take the lead in the second half, and then found ourselves in a tie game with 20 seconds to go.  We lost on a last second fade-away jumper.

It was frustrating because I was guarding the guy who hit the final shot, and I missed a free throw on our last possession that would have given us a one point lead.  After the game I thought about the final sequence and thought of quite a few things I would have done differently in retrospect.  I was mad, and I figured that maybe if I had done a few things differently we would have won the game.  Then I realized that it really doesn't matter at all, and I have no reason to be upset.  It's over now and I can't do anything to change the outcome.  Even though we won't have another game there are a lot of other things going on in my life that I'm even more motivated to accomplish.  For example, I've made a commitment to keep this blog updated at least 2-3 times per week.  Lately, I haven't been reaching that goal because I've been busy with school projects and other day-to-day assignments.  Losing that game has inspired me to write and work harder on my blog.

I think it's important that everyone adopt this type of attitude within your career.  Quite often I hear about friends who have had a job interview, and then didn't get the job.  That's disappointing but it should motivate you to improve your interviewing skills and do better on the next one.  However, a lot of people try to rationalize with comments like "the interviewer asked stupid questions" or "the company made a mistake by not hiring me."  Instead you should be telling yourself "since I didn't get that job I am going to work harder to get the next one."  Find a way to take setbacks in stride and get inspired to make an improvement in something else.

Constantly Ask Questions - You Won't Look Dumb

This past summer I completed an internship with GE in Louisville.  It was an outstanding experience, and I felt like I accomplished a significant amount of work in the 3 months that I was there.  However, there was one thing that held me back from being even more successful.  I didn't ask enough questions.  The project that I was assigned dealt with the IT Help Desk, and it was fairly complex.  When I started I had no idea what the Help Desk did or how a request was routed there.  I was given some documentation to read, and my manager spent some time doing his best to explain everything to me.

It took me a few days to feel comfortable with everything, and I was anxious to get to work since I knew that's what they brought me there to do.  I knew I didn't understand everything perfectly, but I felt like I had to jump into my analysis because it might look bad if I spent too long reading documentation and asking questions.  After I had asked my manager a few questions I didn't want him to think that I hadn't read through things or that I just wasn't smart so I stopped.  I got to work even though I still didn't have as good of a grasp on the whole situation as I would have liked.  I realize now that was a big mistake.  I struggled through my analysis because the situation still wasn't all that clear to me.  If I could do it again, I would be in my manager's office asking questions until he told me to leave.  Then I would have gone to the next person that knew something about my project and started grilling them with more questions. 

Recently, I was reading Don't Fire Them, Fire Them Up! by Frank Pacetta.  One excerpt that I really liked was this:

"Historians report that Napoleon would arrive at a meeting or to inspect one of his units as the dumbest man there.  he would proceed to ask questions by the dozens.  He was never afraid to show lack of knowledge.  When the meeting was over and Napoleon departed, he departed the smartest man on the scene, having absorbed everyone else's expertise."

Follow Napoleon's lead and ask as many questions as you can when you're put in a new situation (such as when you start a new job).  Trust me, you won't look dumb and you'll be better off than if you did nothing.  The only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask.

How Do You Spend Your Time?

This past week I had the privilege of listening to an outstanding presentation given by my current professor and marketing consultant Ann Bastianelli.  She spoke to a mixed group of Kelley School of business students about her advice for graduating seniors. Her main message was that it's important to find your story throughout your career.  You must be known for something, and you should work hard at defining yourself for whatever it is you want to be known as.  However, one topic she discussed really hit home with me - The Time Management Matrix from Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
It's important to devote time to Quadrant II first and foremost because that is the quadrant where we tend to steal time from when Quadrant I or III start to expand.  For me, I've realized that I have a hard time during the school year focusing on the Quadrant II activities.  Growing this blog is a major goal of mine, but it's difficult to spend time on it when there are no immediate consequences for neglecting it for a week.  On the other hand if I neglect some of my assignments for my class for a week then my grades are going to take a major hit, my GPA will start to drop, and my chances of getting a future job that I want starts to shrink because now I don't have quite as high of a GPA.  My thinking is rational, but I don't think it's going to get me to where I want to be.  If I want to have a successful career and start my own business at some point I'm going to need to devote a lot more time to Quadrant II activities that align with my goals. 

It's also difficult to get past Quadrant IV activities at times.  My biggest time waster is browsing the internet.  I seem to be captivated by a lot of different news stories and blog posts and I feel compelled to read everything.  It's always interesting to read about new topics, and I've definitely expanded my knowledge by doing this but I'm not sure if I've gained nearly as much as the amount of time I put into reading these articles.

How Can We Manage Our Time Better?

1. Read Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  The book discusses a few great techniques for focusing your time on Quadrant II activities.  I have not read the entire book yet, but from what I've skimmed through it seems to offer a lot of practical advice.
2. Become aware of how you spend your time on a daily basis.  One tool I've used is the Bubble Timer.  This let's me record my time in 15 minute increments, and it adds total time spent on each activity as the day goes along.  I think this is helpful at least at first so you can really see where your time is going.  Sometimes when I'm surfing the web I don't even realize how long it takes.  After you've identified your problem areas you might not need this tool any longer if it just becomes too much work to record everything.
3. The Now Habit is another great book that introduces the concept of "The Unschedule"  With this technique you create your schedule by first finding time for recreation, fitness, and your major goals.  Then all of your work and available time to have meetings must be scheduled around that.  Now you no longer have to skip your workout because a client wanted to meet with you.  The meeting will have to be at a different time because the workout is occupying that part of your schedule.
4. Conduct an 80/20 analysis and get rid of the activities that are not very productive.  Tim Ferris talks a lot about this in The 4-Hour Workweek.  This can be measured in many different ways so it's important to find what's right for you.  For example, as a student I can't measure my activities by which ones make me the most money.  I don't make any money right now, but even if I had a part-time job it wouldn't be smart for me to devote all my time to it and neglect my classes since homework wasn't making me much money.  For me it's finding what activities are the most important for getting me to where I want to be in the future, and then trying to eliminate activities that are not aligned with those goals.
5. Establish at least 3 Most Important Tasks that you absolutely want to get done each day.  I learned this concept from Leo Babauta's Zen Habits blog, and I've found it to be very effective.  Basically you set 3 tasks for the day that you really want to get done, and then start working on them first thing in the morning.  He recommends at least 1 of these tasks be related to one of your major goals, and the rest can be urgent, work-related tasks.  Once you start working on these first thing in the morning you shouldn't deviate to any other major tasks until you're finished.
6. Finally, I think it's imporatant to keep a to-do list and to set your daily agenda the night before.  Getting Things Done is an decent system, but in my opinion it's pretty difficult to incorporate all of it.  I've used Vitalist as my tool for a to-do list, and as I've mentioned before, Journler, for keeping a journal each night and planning out my next day.

What other tools do you use to manage your time better?  Is there anything that I didn't mention here that you've found to be especially useful?  I'm also curious if anyone knows of a tool that automatically monitors your web browsing usage, and then reports the time you spent at each site throughout the day.  I would definitely use something like this so let me know if this exists or if it's something that could be created.