eTip #617 Four Ways to Master Your Next Job Interview

If one of your goals for this year was to land a new job and you haven’t yet, the clock is ticking.  The consensus among top recruiters is that hiring peaks when most people are in the office.  With summer vacations behind and the hustle and bustle of holidays ahead, late September and the month of October are strong hiring periods.

Once you land the interview, here are four tips to follow in order to increase your odds of securing an offer.

Don’t throw anyone under the bus.  Perhaps you and your current boss bump heads or there is someone on your team who you rubs you the wrong way.  A job interview is the last place to share these negative sentiments.  When you are asked why you want to leave your current employer—or have already left, focus on why you want to grow and where you want to go.  Dale Carnegie’s first Human Relations principle, ‘Don’t criticize, condemn or complain,’ reinforces that while it’s easy to complain about a situation, it takes a strong self-starter to explore and implement solutions. Demonstrate your ‘can-do’ attitude by focusing on how your work experience makes you an ideal fit for the job opportunity.

Listen up!  Dale Carnegie’s 7^th principle is, ‘Be a good listener.  Encourage others to talk about themselves.’  A job interview is like a date—you and your potential employer learn about each other.  Avoid launching into a soliloquy about your stellar education and roster of amazing roles.  Instead, first, actively listen to the interviewer’s questions.  Next, share aspects about your professional experience that correlate to the specific question. Responding in this fashion demonstrates that you are a good listener and have respect for others. 

Smile.  Body language speaks volumes.  In fact, a person’s voice inflection, facial expressions and body language can make up over 90% of their message.  Use Dale Carnegie’s 5^th principle, ‘Smile,’ to your advantage during the interview.  Not smiling can be interpreted in many detrimental ways.  For example, a recruiter may assume you are not interested in or enthusiastic about the job opportunity.  Worse yet, the perception may be that you are complacent, over-confident, self-absorbed or other negative characteristics. Smiling when appropriate sends the message that you are excited and engaged—which hiring managers value.

Show some love.  Dale Carnegie’s 2^nd principle, ‘Give honest, sincere appreciation,’ reminds us to give thanks in every situation.  A popular interview question, “What do you like most and least about your current role, and why?” is ideal to show your sincere appreciation.  For example, you may share that you appreciate the autonomy your current boss has given you because it enabled you to uncover more efficient and effective approaches to outdated processes.  Remember, each question the interviewer poses is an opportunity for you to shine, smile and show your gratitude for all of the work experiences that have paved away for this next potential role. 

By Liz Scavnicky-Yaekle 

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eTip #616 Three Reasons and Ways to Stop Overworking

Although technology has enabled employees’ efficiency to excel in many ways, being constantly plugged-in can equate to never officially clocking out. 

Here are three reasons and ways to stop overworking.

Overworking makes mistakes more likely.  If you tend to work through lunch, stay late most evenings and/or work from home during ‘off’ hours, the tendency to make mistakes soars.  The results of being overworked are exhaustion and stress.  When a person is tired and stressed, the brain has to work much harder to process and respond to information. This means that being overworked can make interpersonal communication, judgement calls and regulating one’s own emotional reactions far more difficult according to Harvard Business Review¹. Moreover, working without breaks causes most people to lose focus according to a 2011 study by the University of Illinois. 

To minimize mistakes, maximize breaks.  Carve out and commit to taking mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks.  Dale Carnegie’s 5^th principle for Breaking the Worry Habit Before It Breaks You is, ‘Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more.’  Should you feel anxiety about stopping for a break, remind yourself that if you skip it, you will most likely make more mistakes.  By keeping your commitment, you will return to your task with a recharged and refreshed focus.

Working too much inhibits good habits.  Overworking also takes its toll outside of the workplace.  Anxiety and stress levels inevitably spill into other areas of employees’ lives.  Stressed people usually struggle to sleep (sleep debt) which causes them to make poor choices out of sheer exhaustion, such as consuming a ton of caffeine with hopes of propelling productivity levels.

Exhausted employees tend to make unhealthy food choices as well, like fast food on a regular basis which also drains energy over time.  Dale Carnegie’s first Basic Techniques in Analyzing Worry principle is, ‘Get all the facts.’ Now that you know overworking will ultimately make you more tired, stressed and likely to opt for poor beverage and meal options, honor yourself by unplugging for a good night’s rest—every night, and eating well daily.

Prevent an intervention.  It’s admirable to work late or over a weekend when there is an urgent and important issue, however when this behavior becomes the norm versus the exception, it can become an addiction.  In fact, 27% of workers claim to be workaholics, and an estimated 10% might be clinically considered work addicts.

If you are often the last one to leave your office; unable to take breaks and/or are constantly plugged in at home, you may have an addiction.  If so, your family and friends have probably mentioned their concerns about your overworking.  Fret not—Dale Carnegie said, “Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.”  Choose a tactic to begin with, such as taking a regular mid-morning break, to develop success from failure.  Next, enlist your colleagues, friends and family to help keep you accountable.

By Liz Scavnicky-Yaekle

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Tip #615

Boost Your Productivity by Breaking These Four Bad Habits

By Liz Scavnicky-Yaekle 

Break these four bad habits to pump up your productivity. 

 Waking up without a morning routine.  Rushing through the morning can have negative consequences on your sense of emotional well-being and overall productivity.  Without a morning routine, it’s easy to skip important activities such as meditating, working out, and worse yet—skipping breakfast.  Starting your day off in a frenzy requires your brain to work extra hard as it’s pumped with adrenaline first thing in the morning, inevitably causing it to crash later on.  Dale Carnegie’s first Human Relations principle to overcome worry, ‘Live in “day-tight compartments,”’reminds us to resolve and follow a morning regimen. Carve out a morning ritual of what you must do before leaving for work to be your best all day long, and watch your productivity, mood and attitude soar!

 Tackling easy tasks first.  It is human nature to address the easiest of all of our day’s tasks first.  The satisfaction of crossing items off our to-do lists is all too tempting, however this approach is an ineffective way to use our brains.  Taking on the most challenging tasks early on in your day will maximize your productivity according to countless studies.  For example, as revealed in the book, The Willpower Instinct, researchers have concluded that willpower is a finite resource that steadily declines during your workday.  It’s best to tackle tough tasks early in the morning when you’re most focused.  The satisfaction and momentum from completing the more challenging tasks will also give you a feeling of accomplishment and confidence that will last all day long.

 Rapidly responding.  Yes, it’s important to be responsive, but interruptions such as instant messaging and a constant deluge of email jar our focus.  The cost of rapidly responding is vast—it takes more than 25 minutes, on average, to resume a task after being interrupted! ¹  When the urge to respond to email is coupled with our psychological need to check our social media notifications, our productivity plummets.  Instead, carve out specific blocks of time when you will check email and your social media feeds.  Turn off any notifications you possibly can to ensure you stay focused on the task at hand.  Not turning notifications off means they will continue constantly interrupting you all day long, causing your productivity to crash. 

 Paying only half attention.  All of the aforementioned distractions make it practically impossible to actively listen to other people.  Dale Carnegie’s 7th Human Relations principle, ‘Be a good listener.  Encourage others to talk about themselves,’ underscores the importance of paying full attention to the other person speaking.  Only listening to half of what someone has to say can cause confusion and sends the message that the other person frankly is not worthy of your undivided attention.  Instead of looking at your laptop or phone during meetings or an impromptu watercooler chat, make strong eye-contact and fully listen to the other person.  If not, it could cost you in terms of productivity—and relationships.

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Tip #614

The Right Way to Say ‘No’ to Your Boss

By Liz Scavnicky-Yaekle 

Are you comfortable saying, “no” to your boss?  It’s important to be a team player, however if your boss continuously piles new projects on your plate, inevitably you will have to delay other work or worse yet, not complete the request at all—which will reflect poorly on you.

The ability to say “no” is a skill many employees need, but few foster. Following these three steps will spare you from wasted time and potential pain.

Hear your boss out.  Dale Carnegie’s 13^th Human Relations principle is,‘Begin in a friendly way.’  The first step to saying “no” without actually saying it is to validate the request.  An affirmation such as, “I understand why this is a high priority,” shows that you are listening without actually accepting the request—yet.  There could be someone to whom you can delegate the task or perhaps accepting the request may enable you to assign something else on your plate to someone else to allow you time to complete the new request.  Consider all of the possibilities before you immediately push-back.

Dig deep for the details.   Dale Carnegie’s 17^th principle is, ‘Try honestly to see things from the other person’s point of view.’  Your boss needs help, otherwise the request would not have been made.  Perhaps the requested task is part of an overall company high-visibility project that you may actually feel honored to work on.  Before you become flustered, ask clarifying questions to understand the timing and level of detail so you can ascertain exactly how much time the task will take and if there is anyone to whom you can delegate all or a portion of the task. 

The answers to these questions serve as inputs to your response.  For example, you may need to politely push back by asking for more time to complete the request or to request for help with one of your other responsibilities. By understanding your boss’s perspective, you’ll be able to confidently frame your response, even if it’s solely to ask for the afternoon to think about it.  Unless the request is super urgent, your boss will most likely grant you time to evaluate.

Propose a viable solution.  If you are leaning towards, “no,” develop a list of possible solutions to the challenge. There may be other team members who desire to grow their careers that would jump at the chance to work on the project.  There could be an opportunity to postpone the request based on information to which you may be privy, but your boss is not.  Maybe someone on your team has performed a similar task in the past and could complete it in half of the time that you would.  List your options, ferret out the details and conclude which one or two options are the best recommendation to make to your boss.  Your proposed solution will show that you have thoroughly and respectfully considered your boss’s request, and that you seek a win-win solution without saying, “NO.”

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Tip #613

Labor Day Lessons—The Residual Impacts of Employee Recognition

 Liz Scavnicky-Yaekle

As leaders and organizations seek strategies to attract and retain top talent, many overlook one of the most basic and easily executed strategies—employee recognition.  Shockingly, only one in three workers in the U.S. strongly agree that they received recognition or praise for doing good work in the past seven days according to a recent Gallup poll.

It only takes a little to give A LOT.  Employee recognition is free and easy, yet employees are rarely ever praised.  Think about how you felt the last time someone recognized you for a job well done; amazing, right?  Recognizing even the smallest successful step, for example, an employee who finally wrote a stellar report summary, pays major dividends for such little investment of time and resources.  Dale Carnegie said, “Let us praise even the slightest improvement. That inspires the other person to keep on improving.”  No matter how big or small of an achievement, be sure to praise employees and encourage others to do the same. 

Positive feedback pays out beyond the workplace.  A study conducted by the Harvard Business School concluded that hearing positive feedback makes employees more productive and happy, and helps to reduce their stress levels. When employees are happier at work, they are happier at home.  From the study of positive psychology, we can glean that this ‘broaden-and-build theory’ of positive emotions means that the receipt of positive emotions broaden a person’s awareness level and encourages exploratory thoughts and actions. As time passes, this broadened behavioral method builds skills and resources. 

Praise strengthens relationships.  Switch gears and consider the person giving positive feedback versus receiving it.  Not only does it feel good to commend others, but doing so demonstrates that the person actually pays attention to what the employee does and has therefore witnessed performance worthy of praise.  This is one of our most basic psychological needs—the need for others to see and recognize the good in us.  Praising others is therefore a win-win strategy.

One statement of praise can last a lifetime.  If you excelled in an extracurricular activity during your school years, odds are you still have award ribbons, trophies, certificates of recognition, etc. stored somewhere.  It is human nature to want to remember these prized moments of achievement, no matter how old we are.  You can have a similar impact on another person!  Something you say or an award you present to an employee may positively impact them for the rest of their lives.  I still have cards, certificates and medals from both my school and early career days which I refer to when I feel discouraged.

Dale Carnegie said, “Let’s cease thinking of our accomplishments, our wants. Let’s try to figure out the other man’s good points. Then forget flattery. Give honest, sincere appreciation. Be hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise, and people will cherish your words and treasure them and repeat them over a lifetime – repeat them years after you have forgotten them.” 

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