Horizon Point Consulting

Author: Mary Ila Ward

  • 7 Networking Do’s and Don’ts

    7 Networking Do’s and Don’ts

    Networking is great for business development, but more often than not, it’s key to career development. Whether you’re in search of your first job or seeking a career change, you need to be networking!

    Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for. – Christine Comaford-Lynch

    The vast majority of job vacancies are never advertised and part of a hidden job market. Experts say at least 75% of job openings are part of this hidden market. To be in the loop, you must network.

    Here is a list of dos and don’ts to help you get started:

    1. Do join professional organizations related to your field.
    2. Do network online. LinkedIn is a great online networking tool. Read 20 Critical Dos and Don’ts of LinkedIn Networking.
    3. Do volunteer (volunteer opportunities often lead to job opportunities).
    4. Do always have business cards or copies of your resume on hand when attending a networking event.
    5. Do keep track of your networking. Use Horizon Point’s Networking Log.
    6. Don’t only talk to those you know at networking events. The entire purpose is to grow your network. Branch out and meet new people.
    7. Don’t overshare – especially in relation to anything negative about your current or previous employer or job.

    Check out Networking Your Way to a New Job for more great ideas and let the networking begin!

  • 4 Things to Do After An Interview

    4 Things to Do After An Interview

    You’ve made it through an interview, or two or three interviews, as it seems to be these days. You relax for a second, happy that this part of the process is over, but that lasts only about half a minute before you begin going through every possible scenario in your head about how things could play out. Do you get a call back with an offer? An invitation to come back for another interview? A thanks but no thanks letter in the mail? What will happen next? And what do you do in the meantime?

    It can be extremely nerve-racking as you wait after an interview, but here are four tips to keep yourself focused on what you can do instead of focusing on what you can’t.

    1. Respond with thanks. Immediately send a thank you note, handwritten if possible, to everyone you interviewed with. Beyond that, focus on having gratitude for the opportunity to interview, and regardless of the outcome, how the opportunity to do so can help you in the future.

    2. Be patient. Many people become frustrated by how long it takes to hear back after an interview. Put yourself in the employer’s shoes and realize how much they are also probably doing on top of trying to select a candidate for this role (of course this empathy needs to go both ways). In addition, some of the control on timing is out of their hands due to things like reference and background checks.

    To help with this, inquire in the interview about what the next steps are and when you should expect to hear something back. Then follow their guidelines with your follow-up. For example, don’t call asking about the position two days after your interview if they told you it would be two weeks before they get back with candidates. As a rule of thumb, if you don’t know their timeline for follow-up, wait at least two weeks before following up with them.

    3. Continue to look and apply for openings that are of interest to you. This helps to keep you focused on what you can control instead of dwelling on if and when and what you are going to hear from those who have interviewed you.

    4. Continue to network. In fact, this should be a strategy regardless of whether you are waiting on interview results or not, whether you are an active job seeker or not. We’ll have more tips for you on networking here on the blog this week.

    What is the most nerve-racking thing for you post interview? How do you combat this?

  • FireSeeds’ Passion + Productivity = Give Back story

    FireSeeds’ Passion + Productivity = Give Back story

    For FireSeeds, a recruitment and leader development company in Birmingham, Alabama, work is a place for impact. Founded by Cord Sachs and Justin Harris in 2011, the company exists to create multiplying movements of multiplying leaders in the for-purpose marketplace.

    “We desire to connect integrity-filled leaders with companies who value their culture. We also create consistent and intentional leader development strategies for organizations through an online platform called WildSparq.com,” said Will Riley, Marketing Director for the firm.

    To FireSeeds staff, passion comes from impacting people. “It all goes back to our vision of creating multiplying movements. A movement happens when we place one of our leaders into a company culture where they have the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. It’s a huge win for us, ” says Riley.

    The passion FireSeeds has for multiplying leaders leads to a productive workplace. Once a quarter, the team reviews its vision, mission, and values to ensure that they are living them out. When calibrating focus towards purposeful work, FireSeeds asks two questions: Does it accomplish our vision and does it drive revenue?

    FireSeeds has taken their passion for leader development and created a system to maximize it in WildSparq. We walk through every lesson and leadership resource before making it available to our companies. Through the use of the platform, motivation has increased, passion is further expressed, and individuals grow. The system allows the company to reward their employees for completing lessons, track their metrics of development, experience their teams on a personal level and teach one another with dynamic leadership content. “We believe this personal and professional development tool has revolutionized how we work,” says the FireSeeds team.

    In addition, FireSeeds takes its focus of Passion + Productivity to give back beyond the walls of the organization.

    “There are plenty of people in need, and we believe we have an opportunity to positively influence others. It’s grace. We love showing grace toward others. Two organizations we are involved with are Clerestory and Five Loaves. Clerestory aids people through recovery. Regardless of their broken past, individuals participate in classes where they learn valuable workplace skills so they can be ready to work again. We have volunteered and interviewed students to give them direct feedback on how they can improve their resume, cover letter, and interviewing skills. Five Loaves is a company that employs graduates from Clerestory. They offer catering services that far surpass any event company we have ever seen. We continue to serve Five Loaves by having them cater meals to our team as well as refer them to other businesses in the Birmingham-metro area. We are continually going to numerous events these organizations host, so we can find creative ways to partner alongside one another and end poverty in the city,” says Riley.

    The combination of a Give Back focus inside and outside the walls of FireSeeds can be summed up as this: “Plainly put, we want to focus our energy on infusing leaders who want to have an impact in work cultures, and work with companies who want to invest in their people. Development doesn’t just happen. It requires work!  We work, so we can give.”

    Do you work so you can give?

    To learn more about FireSeeds and their online leadership development platform, WildSparq, check out these resources:

    –Website link

    –FireSeeds Welcome video

    –WildSparq

    –ESPN3 Commercial (Official Leader Development Partner of the Gulf South Conference)

    –Facebook

    –Twitter

    –LinkedIn

    –Others

  • 5 Questions to End the Slow Painful Death of Death by Meetings

    5 Questions to End the Slow Painful Death of Death by Meetings

    In a leadership training class on communication in the workplace, I had one participant tell the group that meetings at his company were the biggest waste of time. When probed as to why, the basic gist of it came down to two reasons:

    1. No one knows why the heck a meeting has been called and/or why they need to be there

    2. Nothing results from the meetings

    Because of this dialogue as well as other feedback we had received, we started incorporating a segment on effective meetings into our standard Communication Outline lineup.

    Whether you are dealing with these two major meeting issues or just want to sharpen the saw on facilitating effective meetings, here is a checklist of questions to ask yourself:

    1. Do you even need to have a meeting? Is there a more effective way to communicate and/or make decisions?

    2. If a meeting is needed, what is the meeting’s objective? Clearly outline an agenda that meets this objective and send it out to all participants ahead of time. While in the meeting, stick only to topics related to the objective. If a topic comes up outside the scope of the meetings objective, politely redirect the conversation back to the objective and remind people you are doing so out of respect for everyone’s time.

    3. Who really needs to be there? We often include people because we don’t want to hurt feelings and/or we simply don’t take the time to think through who needs to be at the table. Only include those who are truly needed. In the case where decisions need to be made in a meeting, the smaller the group the better.

    4. Did the meeting result in decisions, action items and timelines centered-round the meeting’s objective?

    5. Did you put in place a mechanism to follow-up on the action items and timelines set forth in the meeting?

  • 2 Steps to Keep People from Quitting

    2 Steps to Keep People from Quitting

    Do you know the number one reason why people quit a job? It’s not for more money or better benefits or advancement opportunities. People may cite these factors as a reason for leaving in an exit interview or casual conversation, but what most likely led them to look elsewhere in the first place is because of a bad boss. As a Harvard Business Review article stated, “Studies have consistently shown that having a bad manager or a poor relationship with one’s manager is a top reason an employee quits.”

    Yep, most likely your number one reason for turnover is bad leadership, especially at the frontline level. And how much does turnover cost? Most studies report between 150-300% of the person’s annual salary depending on the position. Ouch.

    However, in the same Harvard Business Review article, only 12% of survey respondents said they currently invest sufficiently in the development of frontline managers.

    So one of the best ways to nip a turnover issue in the bud and to potentially gain a competitive advantage over competitors is to fix your leadership issues, with the greatest bang for your buck being at the frontline level. Here are two steps to do just that:

    1. Identify, assess and select frontline leadership talent based on skills needed to effectively lead and develop others, not skills needed to perform successfully in the doer role. The classic Peter Principle states the people are often promoted to their level of incompetence. Most frontline leaders are promoted to a supervisory role because they are good at the doer role, not because they are equipped with the skills to be effective leading others.

    Whether you are hiring someone externally or promoting from within, you need to assess both the leadership potential of the person (skill) as well as the desire to be in a leadership role (will). As Kris Dunn said in one of his all-to truthful and to-the-point performance management posts at HR Capitalist, “That makes hiring people (leaders) – who are comfortable with the gray and understand the value of taking many small actions towards a goal with no guarantee of success – one of the most important things you can do today.” Find out if the person can lead others in a gray world and if he/she actually wants to.

    If you want some tips on what dimensions you need assess potential leadership talent for, give us a shout out and we can help. Kris Dunn’s post just cited has some food for thought on this, and entrepreur.com can help you get you started in thinking about key traits to evaluate.

    2. Teach frontline leaders the skills they need to be effective in a management role. We often promote people to their level of incompetence because we throw them to the wolves as a new leader and expect them to come out alive.   What often happens is we make no investment in cultivating the new skills needed be effective at our organization and then are surprised when they fail.

    Doing this before someone is even promoted and/or hired into the role is imperative. For example, we have a company we love working with that calls us to come and do one-on-one leadership coaching/training with anyone before they are promoted into a supervisory role. You can’t be promoted without this step in the process.

    Developing and deploying a leadership development training plan at an individual and company level in order to effectively transition people from doer to leader then ensure people maintain and grow in effective leadership skills is an ongoing effort. Development plans are also a great way to facilitate succession planning and foster employee engagement.

    If you want more tips on strategies for putting together effective development plans, you might like these posts:

    3 Steps to Better Leadership  

    Get a Leadership Development Game Plan

    What has been your number one strategy to keep people from quitting? Does it involve leadership development?