My 3 interesting things for you this month…
1. New year, new you?
It’s January! New year, new you? So how are you approaching this new season? It’s a great time to set some clear goals for the year. What would success look like for you this year? New skills? Promotion? A clear career development plan? Perhaps you have personal goals you want to accomplish.
Whatever it is, the simplest way to make goals a reality, is to follow a simple 3 step process:
1) Write down your goal – be clear about what it is and the measure of success. Store them somewhere handy like Notes on your phone, a Google Doc, or in OneNote.
2) Show it to someone else – this creates public accountability. It doesn’t matter who, but ideally someone who won’t pressure you, but equally you wouldn’t want to let them down.
3) Check it through the year – put a reminder in your calendar once a quarter to check them. Every week or month, find what works best for you.
We always achieve less than we expect in a day or a week, but much more than we expect in a year. The above should help you take advantage of that.
If you’re looking to work through these with someone this year, get in touch. I’d love to help you think them through and provide any accountability that would help.
2. New year, new CV?!
For those looking for new jobs in the new year, I wanted to share some research about what makes a great CV.
1) With just a few seconds to make an impression, the focus should be on making the resume easy to read: use simple layouts and fonts. Avoid the temptation to cram information onto the page.
2) Recruiters scan for job titles and subheads. These should be bolded and clear to catch the eye.
3) When discussing accomplishments, short statements are easier to process than paragraph descriptions.
4) The two-page rule remains for most experienced job seekers: an engaged recruiter will spend as much time on a second page as on the first.
5) However, time on the second page is strongly predicted by how compelling the first page is. Subsequent pages tend not to perform as strongly, regardless of how engaged the recruiter is on the first and second page.
6) Keyword relevancy is important for getting a resume through to a recruiter, keywords used should appear in context for a human reader.
You can see more about the research here.
Again, if you more insight and support on this, do get in touch!
3. New year, new chart!
If you really want to wow business partners this year, think about how you can make a really memorable graphic. One that gets people talking and making different decisions.
If you are an avid reader of Chartr’s emails (as I am!), you will have seen them regularly use the Sankey diagram, such as the one below, to demonstrate inflows and outflows. This can be helpful to show how an organisation makes its profit, for example. Another way to think about this is visualising your overall business model for new joiners or leader.
These are obviously not simple to produce, but there is a fantastic website that will help you here. If you build a good one, share it with me, I’d love to see it!
