Be Different or be dead

December 18, 2017

A great résumé is different than others; here are 5 proven ways to build one

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A great résumé is different than others; here are 5 proven ways to build one.

Forget the boilerplate versions you find on the internet. They’re all the same and you’ll put the reader to sleep if they read it at all.

I’ve hired many people in my career and I’ve always considered someone’s CV regardless of the form it’s in, as the applicant’s moment of truth with me.
If it blended into everyone else’s in front of me, I ignored it, but if it had an interesting “side to it I was ready to lean in and pay attention.

Your résumé should be your own individual piece of art; unique and original — a piece of you

It should absolutely not be the product of a template that millions of people use — a common and boring approach that says very little about who you are except that you are comfortable copying what the crowd does.

If you want to maximize your opportunities to impress a prospective employer, craft your résumé with these elements.

Make it custom — Your piece of art should be specific to each opportunity you are vying for; it needs to be unique to the position and organization you’re approaching. Using the same résumé to apply for a variety of roles in different organizations won’t work; it will miss the mark because it won’t talk to the differences between each potential opportunity.

The sales director in NIKE doesn’t represent the same challenge as the same position in Apple. The organizations have different cultures and values and their strategic game plans are a product of their particular circumstances.

Likewise, a marketing manager in any company is different in every way than a sales director, so why would you consider using the same résumé template to show interest in both?

If you are interested in 10 different jobs, you need to create 10 completely different masterpieces, each distinctively unique from the other in some relevant and meaningful way.

Declare your uniqueness — Each piece of your art should answer the question; ‘Why should you hire me and not the other 100 people who also applied?’

Dedicate time to creating the ONLY piece of your art. It will be the best investment you’ve ever made and it will open up career opportunities you never thought existed

As I’ve said in other articles, the job hunting herd typically answers the ‘why hire me?’ question by trotting out their credentials and a smidgen of their skills and experience.

‘You should hire me because I have an MBA from ABC University and have great marketing and conflict management skills’ is a view that unfortunately gets claimed by most of their competition in the hunt for the same position.

To the person doing the hiring, this kind of response is not particularly useful because they want to know how you are different from everyone else; the same response will most likely find your art in the deleted folder.

You must declare what you and ONLY you possess — reread your career game plan — that makes you standout from everyone else who’s applying. ‘You should hire me because I’m the ONLY one who…’ is the compelling way to separate yourself from the job hunting herd.

Source: Unsplash

Know their strategy — Have a section that shows you have studied and you understand the business plan of the organization you’re interested in and their strategic priorities.

Knowledge of what the organization intends to do to thrive and survive makes your ONLY claim relevant; your claim of uniqueness will make sense because it is grounded in what the organization intends to achieve in the marketplace.

For example, claiming you are the ONLY one who has demonstrated experience in a specific marketing discipline won’t resonate if the organization has a strategy demanding a merger and acquisition skill set.

Talk about their markets, competition and technology and that you have some ideas on how you can be successful. It shows initiative and understanding of who your target is.

Few job applicants spend the amount of time that this task takes to do it well. But it will make you different and I suspect the ONLY job hunter who does it. They will be impressed if you can talk their language.

Stress your skills that apply to them — Once you have articulated as best you can your understanding of the strategic game plan of their organization, you now have a context to talk about what you bring to the table.

This is where you can discuss the skills, experience and competencies you have that could make a positive contribution to the direction they are taking.

A game plan that stresses growth, for example, is the opportunity to talk about your marketing and sales expertise and your proven capabilities in building effective teams and product sales to achieve aggressive revenue goals.

Talk about what you’ve done — This section is focussed on achievements. It’s one thing to promote what you think your skills and competencies are; it’s another thing to emphasize what you’ve actually delivered in a messy and chaotic world that would be of interest to the hiring organization.

If you are a recent graduate with limited practical experience, discuss any lab work or projects that would relate to the challenges you’ve discovered the organization faces. The important thing is to create your narrative on what you’ve done that is relevant to the conversation.

Your focus on what you’ve done should represent the overwhelming share of your résumé. Your narrative should be 80% on accomplishments and 20% on the more subjective (and argumentative) aspects of your persona.

The objective of your résumé is not to communicate what you think your skills and capabilities are.

Who cares about what you know. I want to know what you’ve done

A résumé that actually works — measured by the number of job contests you actually win — cuts through the fog and fluffiness and defines exactly why you are the ONLY relevant person for the job.

It declares in very specific terms why you are the ONLY individual who has the proven skills and experience to contribute to the challenges the organization faces.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.18.17 at 03:27 am by Roy Osing
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December 11, 2017

Why reaction to the unexpected makes the best business plan

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Why reacting to the unexpected makes the best business plan.

Traditional business strategy methods give us many tools and techniques to build ‘the perfect plan’.

It offers structure in the SWOT process. It provides analysis in demand and forecasting models. It provides decision-making frameworks to assess the merits of various alternatives.

It’s a mature discipline that has definitely helped organizations chart a course for their future.

That said, I have two issues with it.

▪️ Traditional planning is far too complicated; too expensive; too time consuming in relation to the benefits realized and it raises the false expectaion that the strategy will actually work as planned in a world full of rapid change and unpleasant surprises.

If the essence of the strategy can’t be counted on to succeed why don’t we simplify the planning process so that it is not overly onerous and complicated? So that it is expedient and not costly?

I have seen the folly of relying exclusively on this old school approach that gives the planner the false impression that the complexity of the approach increases the chances of its success.

This alternative has been road tested in the real world.

Dumb down the strategy building process, get your plan just about right and execute it better than your competitors.

▪️ The traditional approach says virtually nothing about the principle of response. Successful companies are brilliant at reacting to surprise events they did not anticipate and those that are unable to adapt struggle and die.

How many strategies have you seen unfold the way you originally planned? I have seen none; it is the impossible dream!

The principle of response is the essence of the practice of planning on the run: Plan - Execute - Learn - RESPOND (Adjust) - Execute….

The essentials of planning in response to unexpected forces:

1. Keep the business planning process simple. Cut the time to devote to developing your strategy in half to make room for more attention to implementation. Get your direction right. Be ok with ’heading west’. Precision is your enemy.

2. Get to the real gut issues you are facing. Forget about complicated mathematical formulae to help you understand the challenges you face. This is not an intellectual exercise.
Declare the three issues keeping you up at night that you must address in order to survive and thrive in an unpredictable world.

3. Plot a course of action. Spend copious amounts of time figuring out how you intend to implement your statement of direction. Assign accountability and specific timeframes to deliver results.

4. Execute! Execute! Execute! Bear down on getting results however you can. It doesn’t have to be elegant as long as you’re getting stuff done. And make sure everyone in the organization understands what they have to do to support the execution plan; people doing their own thing is a nonstarter.

5. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Meticulously monitor and analyze results to discover what you should do more of and what you should stop doing.

6. React to your results and adjust your direction. Tweek your plan based on how effective your execution is and move on quickly. Keep your feet moving.

Remarkable organizations have a ‘reasonable’ plan, but their competitive advantage is that they react to unexpected change better than anyone else.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.11.17 at 04:23 am by Roy Osing
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December 4, 2017

How an average leader can become a remarkable one

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How an average leader can become a a remarkable one.

Why are some leaders mediocre while others are wildly successful? Exactly what differentiates the leader that their followers “love” from the one who may have subordinates but no followers?

Over my 30+ year business journey I have witnessed and reported to many different leaders; some brilliant and some not so much.

My conclusion is that those who constantly deliver superlative performance through passionate and turned on teams have a very specific profile.

1. They are of average intelligence; NOT superstar intellectuals. Their academic pedigree satisfies the entry requirements to climb the ladder and they view it that way - the ante to play the leadership game.

2. They acquire a repertoire of practical skills from their experience. They build it by actively engaging in the implementation activities of their organization’s strategy. This allows them to be able to solve a range of problems that others without implementation depth cannot.

3. Their stable of mentors is broad and deep. They are able to draw on a vast resource base of skills and experience to support them and provide advice.

4. They are micromanagers. They pick and choose the hills that require their personal involvement as the leader and they dive in. They don’t believe in across-the-board delegation; particularly in matters dealing with serving customers. They personally paint a picture in great detail to all employees of what they expect the customer experience to look like.

5. They spend copious amounts of time with the frontline. Gathering feedback from the people who are key to executing the organization’s strategy is a top priority to them, and frontline employees continually witness the leader’s presence in their workplace - listening, asking questions, taking notes.

6. They are consummate communicators. They are able to draw emotional support from people by presenting their vision and values in a compelling and passionate way. And they are in the faces of employees regularly, reporting on the progress of their strategy and stressing what action needs to be taken in the short term to improve performance.

7. They never break a promise. They do what they say, and influence others to adopt the same behaviour as a fundamental organizational value. And ultimately this treatment is manifested in how customers are served and forms a vital component of their competitive strategy.

8. They are effective at letting go. They treat eliminating work that is no longer relevant to their strategy with the same priority as adopting new challenges. They close the doors on new hires until they can be satisfied that no further CRAP can be eliminated.

9. They thrive on imperfection. They understand that seeking the perfect solution consumes time and energy that could be applied to implementing and learning. They emphasize that doing stuff and learning on the run is more important than over-studying and risk aversion.

‘Made to lead’ is not for everyone; it requires noncompliance with many accepted norms of leadership. The thing is, its fundamentals create vibrant cultures and brilliant performance.

So why would any leader want to be normal?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.4.17 at 03:44 am by Roy Osing
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November 27, 2017

Why the best growth strategy is to make a culture and transplant it

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In an unpredictable and intensely competitive environment every business faces a challenge to grow.

They generally apply one of two strategies to achieve this end.

▪️The first is to grow organically; focusing the organization’s resources primarily on their existing customers with current and new products and they rely on obtaining new customers by winning them away from their competitors.

▪️The second is to expand their customer base by acquiring another company and essentially importing the customer base that they hold. Apart from anticipated synergies such as reduced operating costs the purchaser buys a customer base with an existing revenue stream.

There are mixed views on which approach is the most effective.

Organic growth can be slower than desired; acquisition growth can, at least on paper, be fast and effective, but can often result in organizational integration issues (for example cultural and leadership differences) that prevent growth objectives from being achieved.

▪️There is a third growth approach, however, which is a kluge of organic growth and acquisition strategies; I rarely see this option used by any organization.

This involves creating a brand or culture and transplanting it in the business acquired. If an organization has been successful in creating a culture around serving customers, for example, they would look to buy a company with significant growth potential and transfer their customer focused culture to it.
They would treat other common core competencies such as technological and strategic fit as secondary considerations.

Richard Branson is a good example of a leader who has been successful doing this. He developed a customer centric culture In his businesses and then applied it to new businesses he bought but had no prior experience in.

For example his music business spawned his customer focus competency which he then applied subsequently to the many different businesses he acquired.

It makes sense.

Any business requires a strong customer bias to be successful. Incubate it in your own (semi-controlled) environment and then replicate it in the businesses you acquire.

There are three huge benefits of this ‘culture transplant’ approach.

1. Your competitive advantage is scaled and multiplied across all businesses you buy;

2. Business integration risks are reduced as cultural differences are less of a factor;

3. The time to realize acquisition synergies is shortened as critical barriers to execution such as structure and employee engagement are minimized.

If you’re in the hunt for an acquisition as a means to grow, look for a company who first has a culture leaning in your direction and then has opportunities for synergy and growth.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 11.27.17 at 04:20 am by Roy Osing
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