Jason Monastra

My life and thoughts out on the web

The job search and better yet the career path that one takes has a genuine undertone that I think inevitably shapes the thoughts and minds of the seeker.  That is the person’s passion.  Passion is under-used criteria in the search process as most people think that passion is lost when they need to “grow up” and move out into the world.    I researched passion and this is what I found “Passion can be expressed as a feeling of unusual excitement, enthusiasm or compelling emotion towards a subject, idea, person, or object. A person is said to have a passion for something when they have a strong positive affinity for it. A love for something and a passion for something are very similar feelings.”  Does this sound like something we need more or less in the work place?

To me I would say more.  I have recruited, placed and built departments in the IT world for 10 yrs plus now (I am getting older….LOL).  The thing that makes a person or a place great is the passion the team or professional brings to the job and the environment.  So many of us do not have passion for our daily duties.  A real love of what we do, how we do it, how we can make it better.  I read once that a person with a job has too much time, and a person with a career never has enough.  I believe that this makes a strong alignment to the passion one feels and the career that spurns from that love.  Jobs are boring, careers tend to be better, but what about a passion that happens to be what you do for work?  That has power, creativity, efficiency, and hard work written all over it.  It is the key to making your job what no one else haves….a part of your daily life that you love doing and happen to get paid for.

How do we capture this in our search for a new role, or even create it in a role we currently have and enjoy?  I think that bringing passion to the search is far easier than creating it from scratch.  So we will begin there.  I know that people have heard in all sorts of forums the need for a professional job seeker to look for what they love and apply that to the search.  But that does not really address the idea of passion.  People love to do a great deal of things, most of which cannot sustain a living.  So what about a passion?  Well…pick it and I think we can come to a handful of positions in which that passion can be leveraged to create a career.  Passion is the key in what needs to be defined.

So lets do it….what is your passion?

Ask yourself:

• What do you wake up thinking about?
• What brings you more fulfillment than anything else?
• What spurs a restlessness in your heart when you discuss it?
• What can someone say, or bring up, that immediately floods you with passion to talk about, act on, or defend?

These are all defining comments on passion.  If these are answered truthfully, passion is easy to define.  Once defined, you need to incorporate that into a what positions use or leverage that passion to succeed in their business or objective.  Those are the positions and companies you need to align yourself with knowing that you are progressing the cause in which you have a great deal of passion.

Over time it has become apparent in reading and listening to people within organizations that a sense or lack of manager care is constant in the work place.  Management, both executive and supervisory, are pressed with the bottom line offering little consciousness of the impact.  Expecting more and demanding more, employees become less and less engaged.  They work endless hours to serve “the man” just in the hopes that they will keep their job in the sliding economy.  The downward pressure continues to build until the release factor - quitting or getting fired - becomes a reality. 

I know in a great amount of the time this is true.  Economics on a worldwide stage are brutal, offering little to make one feel comfortable about the future prospects.  But is management to blame?  Better put, are managers the only ones to blame?  Until recently, I would have easily laid the pressure on their shoulders without thinking twice.  Mocking them as much as others would be a natural and easy step until most recently.  I read the story of a certain professional whose story becomes not so uncommon.  And in this, we can all see that management is not alone.

Derrick is an employee currently working in a customer focused environment.  He works for a large services company operating in their 2nd level support function bringing customer solutions to people that have purchased products from his employer.  Recently, it has been rumored to increase the bottom line and continue growth - the US based call centers will be closing and transferring responsibilities to off-shore call centers in India and Brazil.  This has worried a great deal of people including Derrick.

Derrick’s company has been very good about communicating the strategy and not all positions will be moving overseas.  The lower level roles will be moving, but all critical care, management, and project management roles will be staying here in the US.  Those positions will be filled with professionals in the company already and external people if the talent pool is not present.  Derrick, a 5 yr employee, is quite interested in remaining employed and inquires from his manager how he can be involved with one of the company’s remaining positions.  His manager offers him a clean strategy of to collect professional reviews, references, and annual evaluations to show that he can handle the new positions increased responsibility.  He also was told to break down his current role, inquire from business intelligence on how he stands statistically and bring all of that to the table.

Despite the advice and direction offered by his manager - Derrick decides to “show” his manager what type of person he is.  He continues doing the work he is doing, but working extended hours and filling roles where other people are falling short or have quit.  He feels that in this manner management will see his efforts and place him into one of the newly created roles.  Logically, as Derrick sees it, the actions he is taking make him appear like “management material” and the company will see with sweat and tears that he is a needed part of the team.

Fast forward to the end, Derrick lost his job - not to India but to another professional that came in from outside the company.  When he questioned the decision citing his more than 5 yrs of service, management told him that the information available for decisions and moving people into this role did not offer them a clear view that he had done, nor would be capable of the increased responsibility.  Therefore they went in a different direction. 

WOW.  Derrick was floored but to whose fault. He leaves there thinking little of the company and that he never stood a chance in getting the role.  But did he do what he could to get the new position.  Was he truly listening to the powers at be to place himself in the best seat to take advantage of the changes.  In this scenario, he had all of the information he needed to make the jump.  He simply did not execute.  However, when the picture is less clear, are we helping ourselves or doing more of the same in hopes people see us different?

I read a recent article about the art of confidence and how one is to garner it.  Take a look at the post on The Career Encouragementblog.  I noticed as I was reading the post that places together a quick list of ways to gain self confidence that something was missing.  The list of ways to gain self confidence did not cover what I think is the number 1 reason and method for building your internal power when heading to an interview.  Preparation.

Preparation is the number one way people feel confident in their approach to a meeting, an interview, pretty much anything.  You can walk fast, speak loud and dress for the black tie event.  If you are not prepared mentally with a knowledge of the subject matter, of the audience, of the purpose of your meeting - you are doomed for failure.  The people that are prepared are not only the most confident, they typically do not have to lather on some of the surface mannerisms that try to masquerade as confidence allowing people to quickly realize their expertise thus immediately taking them in as a trusted resource.

The great thing about preparation.  It is the easiest and cheapest method as well.  With the web, the limitless resources available for one to read and become aware of a subject make for a sea of opportunity when prepping for that big meeting.  So instead of running out to purchase that 1000 suit, running to the gym one more time, or sitting in the front row yelling your head off  - do the simplest thing.  Sit tight, take time off and spend it in front of the research instrument most all of us have available.  You will find it is time well spent.

Take a look at LambentPath and learn more about the keys that people are using in making their job search more effective.

Written by Jason Monastra

I am not sure how many articles I have read over the past months talking about the greed of the CEO and executive leadership even amongst the constant layoffs that our nation is experiencing.  In my reading of some of the other blogs, there was a discussion surrounding if there was a suitable alternative to layoffs.  I gave some thoughts however did not have a real practical or example of a company that has implemented cost cutting in the face of layoffs to reverse the trend..  One has surfaced.

Kevin Cullen from The Boston Globe writes about Paul Levy, the CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and what they did in the face of layoffs.  Paul was faced with huge budget shortfalls and the pressure to make the numbers meet the targets.  With that, layoffs were proposed to the extent of removing more than 600 jobs.  Faced with a huge challenge, Paul did not play it safe but enlisted his most trusted and secure asset - his people.  All of them to be exact.  He went before the entire staff and told them this is where they are and what needed to be done to ensure financial health for the company.

People were more than enthusiastic and looked for increasing ways to reduce costs without costing people their jobs.  With the meeting, the offers for cost cutting was coming by the hundreds.  By the time it was all said and done, there were layoffs but reduced from 600 down to 150.  Look at some of the suggestions offered:

1. Reduce the work week from 5 days down to 4
2. No raises for the next 2 yrs
3. Reduce company expense accounts
4. Executive mgmt pay cuts
5. Remove fringe benefits

It appears that there are suitable options to simply just layoffs.  With th. economic situatio. consistantly changing and having global implications, the simple approac. of just letting people go does not address how the world of business is changing.  With increased pressure to reduce costs, companies will need to enlist the assistance of the people rather than turning a deaf ear to them and just letting them go.