Defibrillator Jobs – CDM EIF

Being in transition is tough so advice is often offered with a spoonful of sugar.  While well intentioned, however, that approach sends the wrong signal to those most in need of candor.  So, being as frank (and respectful) as I can, here’s the unvarnished truth.  This job market is filled with “irrational expectations.”  You cannot find a job today using job search strategies and techniques that were devised for yesterday’s workplace.  To put it more bluntly, you won’t find work—any work—in such a tough environment with a weak career record.

And sadly, that’s what a lot of people are bringing to their job search.  They haven’t kept their skills up-to-date.  Their ability to make a contribution commensurate with their experience has atrophied.  Even their network of contacts has all but withered away.

Historically, such an out of shape career didn’t matter much.  You could be laid off and, with little or no change in your credentials, hit the job search trail and in relatively short order, find another, similar (or even better) position.  Basically, we had a come-as-you-are job market.

Unfortunately, those happy days are gone and gone forever.  Why is that?  Remember the jobless recovery of the 2001 recession?  Well, this recession built on that development to create the “less jobs” recovery.  When things start to get better, there will still be fewer jobs—not more or even the same number—as there are right now during the recession.  Jobs aren’t being left open until things get better.  They are being destroyed.

What does that mean for people in transition?  Now, you have to enter the job market in a very different way.  If you want to find employment in the new world of work, you have to fix your career first.  Or, at a minimum, you must be fixing it while you’re searching for a job.  But, the point is that Step 1 in a job search today—not step 2 or 3 or 4—is to upgrade your capabilities and your credentials.  Whether you have 20 years in the workplace or 20 minutes.  From now on, you have to have a strong career if you want to conduct a strong job search.

And then, once you find a job, you have to go on building up the strength of your career.  You can’t stop simply because you’re earning a paycheck.  Why?  Because only a fit career will enable you to hang onto that job you have and get an even better job once the recovery starts.

How do you build career strength?  It takes a regular and repetitive commitment to seven kinds of activities.  As detailed in my book Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, they are:

I. Pump Up Your Cardiovascular System  The heart of your career is your occupational expertise, not your knowledge of some employer’s standard operating procedures.  Re-imagine yourself as a work-in-progress so that you are always been adding depth and tone to your knowledge and skill set and memorializing that enlarged capacity on your resume.

II. Strengthen Your Circulatory System  The wider and deeper your network of contacts, the more visible you and your capabilities will be in the workplace.  Adding to your network, however, means exactly what the word says—it’s netWORK, not net-get-around-to-it-whenever-it’s-convenient.  Make nurturing professional relationships a part of your normal business day.

III. Develop All of Your Muscle Groups  The greater your versatility in contributing your expertise at work, the broader the array of situations and assignments in which you can be employed.  Develop ancillary skills—for example, the ability to speak a second language or knowledge of key software programs—that will give you more ways to apply your primary capabilities in the workplace.

IV. Increase Your Flexibility & Range of Motion  In the 21^st Century world of work, career progress is not always a straight line, nor does it always look as it has in the past or stay the same for very long.  Moving from industry-to-industry, from one daily schedule to another or even from one location to another is never easy, but your willingness to adapt will help to keep your career moving forward.

V. Work With Winners  Successful organizations and coworkers aid and abet your ability to accomplish your career goals, while less effective organizations and less capable peers diminish it.  Working with winners enables you to grow on-the-job, develop useful connections that will last a career and establish yourself as a winner in the world of work.

VI. Stretch Your Soul  A healthy career not only serves you, it serves others, as well.  A personal commitment to doing some of your best work as good works for your community, your country and/or your planet is the most invigorating form of work/life balance.  It regenerates your pride in what you do and your enthusiasm for doing it.

VII. Pace Yourself  A fulfilling and rewarding career depends upon your getting the rest and replenishment you need in order to do your best work every day you’re on-the-job.  The human body and mind have limits, and those limits cannot be extended by multitasking or even a Blackberry.  Instead, you have to discipline yourself and your boss to set aside time to recharge your passion and capacity for work.

Understanding what’s involved in these exercises and then performing them on a regular basis is the foundation of a “system” for building Career Fitness.  Think of it as a strategy for surviving and prospering in today’s and tomorrow’s workplace.

Who is Peter Weddle?
Peter Weddle is a recruiter, HR consultant and business CEO turned author and commentator.  Described by The Washington Post as “… a man filled with ingenious ideas,” Peter has earned an international reputation, pioneering concepts in human resource leadership and employment.  He has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The National Business Employment Weekly and CNN.com.  Today, Peter writes two newsletters that are distributed worldwide and oversees WEDDLE’s LLC, a print publisher specializing in the field of human resources.  WEDDLE’s annual Guides and Directory to job boards are recognized for their accuracy and helpfulness, leading the American Staffing Association to call Weddle the “Zagat of the online employment industry.”

The Weak Link Syndrome

It was partly my own fault.  I realize that now.  I naively accepted an invitation on LinkedIn to connect with someone I didn’t know.  I did confirm that this person was in the employment field, and since I’m terrible at remembering names, I thought that we may have met at a conference somewhere.  I still don’t know whether that’s the case, but as soon as I accepted the invitation, this person started to spam me with email after email about openings he was trying to fill.  And therein lies the central problem with LinkedIn, at least as it is currently used by a very large number of people.

LinkedIn advertises itself as a networking tool for professionals.  That’s fine.  But building up a huge (or even a small) address book of contacts is not networking.  In fact, given that networking is actually a form of dialogue that is most appropriately practiced as an integral part of one’s business day, what’s going on at LinkedIn today is best described as “notworking.”

You see, the Golden Rule of Networking is that you have to give as good as you get.  It’s fundamentally an exchange of information, ideas, and/or assistance from which both parties derive value.  That mutual allocation of benefit establishes familiarity and trust, and those two factors are the twin pillars of a relationship.  When networking is working, that’s what it creates—a relationship.

How Do Relationships Happen?

Now, if you’ve ever been in a relationship, you know two things about them.  First, you quickly learn that they are hard work.  That’s why the word is spelled the way it is: it’s netWORK, not net-get-around-to-it-whenever-you-feel-like-it.  And second, you come to appreciate that relationships take time to develop.  They don’t happen with the click of a mouse, whether you’re on LinkedIn or Facebook or any other social or professional “networking” site.

And sadly, my connection on LinkedIn understood neither of those points.  As he put it when I asked him to stop sending me his intrusive email, “When you linked to me you agreed to receive email notifications and to network with me.”

Well, my friend, that’s not networking.  First, you’re not working at building a relationship with me.  You’re spamming me with unwanted email.  Second, there’s no reciprocity here.  All of the value in our interaction accrues to you.  You want me to provide the names of people I know for your openings, yet you haven’t taken the time to get to know me or to offer me anything of commensurate value.  You aren’t giving as good as you get.  You’re just taking what’s useful to you.

Now, I’ve heard the stories about people finding a job through their LinkedIn contacts.  That’s great.  But those situations are the exception to the rule.  There are more than 36 million people with profiles on Linked, and most have fewer than 10 contacts.  In other words, they’ve checked off the online Social/Professional networking box on their to-do list—they‘ve joined the latest and greatest job search tool for the 21^st Century—but they haven’t done anything with it.  They aren’t investing the time and effort required to build up their Web of relationships or enrich them.

I call this situation the Weak Link Syndrome.  It produces two harmful consequences.

• First, a lot of people in transition who have now joined professional networking sites believe they’ve strengthened their ability to find a new or better job, and they haven’t.  They think they’re using a state-of-the-art tool to enhance their personal performance, and they aren’t.  They’re wasting their time and talent fiddling with a technology—online professional networking—that isn’t working for them.
• Second, the absence of so many job seekers networking effectively online has created a vacuum.  And into that vacuum has flowed a crowd of individuals who are happy to misuse the system.  Like my former connection on LinkedIn, they are clueless about the true nature of networking and feel entitled to use some malformed version of their own.  And that misappropriation of the online networking experience diminishes it for everyone else.

 
So, what do I recommend?  I think we have just two options.  We can either devote the time and energy necessary to extend our online professional networks far beyond their current meager limits and then transform those contacts into genuine relationships or we should abandon the sites that are supposed to nurture them and turn our time and talent to more productive activities.  As the old truism notes, it’s not worth doing something unless you’re going to do it right.

Who is Peter Weddle?
Peter Weddle is a recruiter, HR consultant and business CEO turned author and commentator.  Described by The Washington Post as “… a man filled with ingenious ideas,” Peter has earned an international reputation, pioneering concepts in human resource leadership and employment.  He has authored or edited over two dozen books and been a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, The National Business Employment Weekly and CNN.com.  Today, Peter writes two newsletters that are distributed worldwide and oversees WEDDLE’s LLC, a print publisher specializing in the field of human resources.  WEDDLE’s annual Guides and Directory to job boards are recognized for their accuracy and helpfulness, leading the American Staffing Association to call Weddle the “Zagat of the online employment industry.”

Resume Don’ts from Hiring Managers

I have been doing some research lately that has involved talking to a number of hiring managers in various scientific industries. In doing so, I have collected a list of a few things they don’t like. In some cases, these small things are enough to knock you out of the running for a position, no matter how good your technical qualifications are. Here, in no particular order, are things that have been mentioned to me.

Resume Portfolio

In the sciences, your “resume” is really more of a resume portfolio. It should include a cover letter, a resume customized for the particular recipient, a research summary, a patent/publication/presentation list, and perhaps other documents that the employer has requested. Depending on the type of employer, this may include a list of references, management philosophy (for senior industrial positions), teaching philosophy and research proposal (for academic positions), and so on. While the resume itself should only be 2 pages, all the supplemental material can bring the page count significantly higher.

For hiring managers, having all this information at the start of the process is a big plus. If they’re interested in you, they can dive right into the details instead of having to wait for more information. Having it electronically is also an asset – this makes it much easier to store and access from multiple places than paper copies.

However, if each piece is a separate document, this significantly increases the amount of overhead required to open and print each file, not to mention keeping them together and making sure each one has been read. Putting all the information in one file – with clear headers and delineations, makes it easier for the recipient to keep it together, not to mention being able to print and search the whole thing easily.

One hiring manager mentioned getting a resume in which the objective was a particular type of position in the pharmaceutical industry. That would be fine, except her organization is not in that industry – in fact, it’s a government agency and not an “industry” at all. She says she often gets resumes/cover letters that talk about wanting a position in “industry”, and those go directly into the trash can. After all, if you can’t be bothered to check the details on something as important as your resume, how can she expect you to be careful with details on the job?

I have often said that my claim to fame is that in the 15+ years I have been a volunteer consultant, I have never seen a resume in which I could not find at least one typo. Sometimes it’s just something that looks like a typo (for example, a strange formatting choice), but that’s almost as bad. Having a typographical error in your resume is another way to get a quick trip to the trash can…who wants to hire someone who does not pay attention to detail on something as important as their resume?

Always make sure to have someone other than yourself read your resume carefully. Pick someone who has an excellent command of the English language, whose opinion you trust, and who will give you honest feedback without worrying about hurting your feelings. Only that way can you make sure you are putting your absolute best effort forward, and have the best possible chance to obtain the job of your dreams.

This article was written by scientific communication consultant Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants, and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press (2006).

Job Interviews….Trust Your Instincts

Over the years, I have been on both sides of the interview table many, many times. But the strangest job interview I ever had happened a few years ago, at an unnamed company in the midwest.

I arrived at the company at 9am, as requested, and was ushered into a small conference room right inside the front door. For the next several hours, people came in and out to ask me questions, but I never left that room. At about 1pm, my host escorted me out of the building, right past the company cafeteria. No tour of the facility, no seeing where I would work, no meeting all my potential co-workers, no giving a talk on my research. Being very hungry at the time, I could only assume I had not done well, and they were not interested in hiring me.

To my surprise, a few days later I received a call offering me the position. After I got over my shock, I asked if I could come back in and have a tour of the facility. My host reluctantly agreed, and a few days later I went back in. They didn’t have employees chained to the walls, and I could not figure out what it was that they had not wanted me to see. They also seemed very nervous during the whole tour, which also struck me as strange.

After the tour I went home and contemplated their offer. I had no other immediate options, but did not feel good about that company. Something strange was going on, but I did not know what. Eventually I made the decision to turn them down, and ended up starting my own consulting business. (Which has worked out very well, incidentally.)

I remained in that geographic area for several years, and became involved in the local section of the American Chemical Society. Over time, I met several people who worked at that company, and eventually even one in the department for which I would have been working. I was finally able to find out what had been going on – the company had been under a hiring freeze, and the department was trying to get me in without the human resources department finding out. That explained all the secrecy and nervousness on the part of the people with whom I interviewed! I’m still not sure how they were going to hire me if I accepted – probably into a temporary position that would not have been frozen.

I often wonder what would have happened if they had been honest and told me about the hiring freeze. I would not have felt so uncomfortable, and probably would have accepted the position.

Still, when I look back I am sure I made the right decision. I didn’t feel comfortable there, and working under those conditions would not have been pleasant. I learned that when evaluating potential employers, you should trust your instincts – if it doesn’t feel comfortable, it probably won’t be a good match, and you should let the opportunity pass. In my case, another option did come along, even though it took me awhile to recognize it. But that’s a story for another day……

This article was written by scientific communication consultant Lisa M. Balbes, Ph.D. of Balbes Consultants, and author of: “Nontraditional Careers for Chemists,” published by Oxford University Press (2006).

Renewing your Career with Renewable Energy

National and international leaders are promising to take action on global warming, 33 states have adopted renewable energy standards, and some individuals and businesses are looking for more sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels.

In light of the promising outlook for the renewable energy industry, four institutions in Ohio recently introduced a Master’s program in clean and renewable energy. The program is housed in the http://engineering.udayton.edu/Graduate_Programs/Renewable_Energy_Program/University of Dayton’s mechanical and aerospace engineering department (http://engineering.udayton.edu/Graduate_Programs/Renewable_Energy_Program/) and http://www.cs.wright.edu/mme/future-grad-rce.shtml Wright State University’s mechanical and materials engineering department (http://www.cs.wright.edu/mme/future-grad-rce.shtml).

Students enroll at either WSU or UD and take courses taught by faculty from WSU, UD, Central State University and the Air Force Institute of Technology. With the option of part-time or full-time enrollment and full-time tuition of $3,121 per quarter for Ohio residents or $5,929 for non-residents, the program is designed to be affordable and flexible to suit the needs of students at different stages of their careers.

While the program is housed in mechanical engineering departments, the directors said they would like to attract students from a variety of backgrounds, including chemists and chemical engineers.

“Renewable and clean energies need a lot of different viewpoints to advance the field,” said James Menart, professor of mechanical and materials engineering at WSU. “If we have a lot of different viewpoints attacking this problem, the field will advance quicker, so it is my desire to bring other types of engineers into the program besides mechanical and materials.”

The University of Dayton has a strong fuels program including biofuels, while Wright State has a strong fuel cells program. Other areas of particular interest to chemists and chemical engineers include energy efficiency, sequestering carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels and developing materials for batteries, supercapacitors, and photovoltaics.

For a more intensive graduate program, <a href=”http://www.res.is/”>The School for Renewable Energy Science</a> in Iceland (http://www.res.is/) offers a one-year Master’s degree, with specializations in Geothermal Energy, Fuel Cell Systems &amp; Hydrogen, Biofuels &amp; Bioenergy, Hydropower, and Energy Systems &amp; Policies.

RES also offers a summer school program for undergraduate students and one to three day short courses for executives and managers.

To pursue solar energy, the University of Wisconsin’s Solar Energy Laboratory (http://sel.me.wisc.edu/) offers both Master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s in mechanical and chemical engineering.

Another option for exploring the renewable energy field is the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Research Participant Program (http://www.nrel.gov/employment/research_participants.html). Visiting scholars participate in ongoing research at the laboratory and can develop their own areas of research to pursue at their home institutions. Post-doctoral positions are posted on the NREL website; faculty wishing to pursue a sabbatical at NREL also work through the RPP.

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As a freelance science writer, Barbara Maynard has reported on the use of wind power in rural Alaskan villages, energy efficient building techniques and the future of solar technologies. Some of her work can be seen in archived issues of Chemistry magazine.

Quadratic Graffiti Inspires Blogger

I don’t often read the same book twice, but I’ve made an exception for Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. This book has been a New York Times bestseller for more than 40 weeks, and the YouTube video of Pausch’s actual last lecture (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo ) has been viewed more than 8 million times.

In case you’re not familiar with the Pausch story, here’s a highly distilled version:

Pausch, a 46-year-old computer science professor from Carnegie Mellon University, was diagnosed in 2006 with pancreatic cancer. While battling his cancer–and to leave a legacy for his three young children–he gave an inspirational “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon in September, 2007. The video-taped lecture, titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” became an Internet sensation, and his story was featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and a one-hour television special on ABC. Pausch died on July 25, 2008. For more biographical details, see the Wikipedia article. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Pausch ) and the Last Lecture website ( http://www.thelastlecture.com/ )

Over the years, I’ve “met” (in person or through books and movies) a number of inspirational people.  These role models have helped cheer me up when I’m feeling down. They’ve encouraged me to see my life and career in a larger context.  When faced with tough decisions, I sometimes envision what these heroes would do.

You’ve probably got your own list of heroes. But if you haven’t already added Randy Pausch to that list, you definitely should.

While there are many inspirational stories to be found in the world, Pausch’s story seems especially real and poignant to me—because he was a scientist, a geek, a nerd. He thought, lived, and eventually died like a scientist. He was full of questions, curiosity, and a desire to make the world a better place.

The moment I fell in love with his story was when I learned about his childhood bedroom:

As a 16-year-old, he convinced his parents to let him paint on the walls of his bedroom. Eventually, the walls featured scenes of rockets, chess pieces, Pandora’s box, and a submarine’s periscope. However, the most important painting on the wall was the quadratic formula. Yes, that quadratic formula…. ( http://www.scienceteecher.com/quadratic.htm )

Anybody who’s proud to proclaim to the world his love of the quadratic formula is a hero in my book.

But Pausch was not just a scientist. He was also a husband, son, father, mentor, teacher, dreamer, doer, story-teller, and philosopher.

His lecture and book are full of big life lessons: “The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.” And practical tips such as “Keep telephone calls short by standing during the call.“

If you need to jolt yourself out of self-pity or self-importance, this lecture will do it. If you like to laugh and cry at the same time, this lecture will get your tears flowing. And if you need some hard-won career advice from a fellow scientist, this lecture will provide it.

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Randy Wedin blogs from Wayzata, MN. After spending a decade working for the ACS and as a Congressional Science Fellow,
he launched a freelance science writing business,
Wedin Communications (www.wedincommunications.com), in 1992.
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