Be Different or be dead

January 1, 2021

How to power up your career and make you successful

How to power up your career and make you successful.

BE DiFFERENT YOU is about how to accelerate your career.

How to take your career to another level and achieve greater success in a world where the competition for a fast track route to success is fierce.
                       
My 35+ years as an entrepreneur and business leader taught me one simple truth: if you are not DiFFERENT and standout from the crowd, you won’t get noticed and you won’t be successful.

You will be ignored. You will be white noise. You will blend into the background.

You will fall short of what you expect of yourself.

It’s as simple as that.

This ebook will show you how to BE DiFFERENT than the crowd in easy, practical and proven ways and take your career to astronomical levels as a result.

You will learn the simple, practical things I did to make my mark in fast-paced, technology driven, intensely competitive business where many people coveted the same leadership positions.

Where personal rivalry was deep.

Where hand-to-hand combat for advancement was an everyday occurrence.

To survive and advance in my career, I could not rely on the standard textbook career prescription. I had to develop my own unique approach based on the practical dynamics of real world business.

Key concepts

Here a only a few topics in my daring book that you won’t find anywhere else:

— The personal ONLY Statement.
— Muzzle the Ego Beast.
— The Career Game Plan.
— Being on the side of the Angels.
— Learning Line of Sight Leadership.
— Target the Fox for advancement.

— Ask the magic question In times of career change.
— Don’t be like the next guy.
— Find a ‘done it’ mentor.
— You need to be a performer.
— Your personal brand must stand apart from the crowd.
— You need a killer résumé.

— You need to be different to win.
— ’Get dirty’ ways to advance.
— Divergent factions.
— Your knowledge isn’t enough.
— If you’re not relevant your dead.
— It’s ok to be contrarian.

Learn from my innovative career winning approaches and my personal experiences. They are DiFFERENT from what you are used to reading from academics and other ‘experts’.

They are proven. They worked for me and they’ll work for you!

Let me be your coach, guide and mentor.

You won’t regret it.

What some of my readers say...

“In ‘BE DiFFERENT YOU! Roy Osing offers practical advice and proven methods for any professional who wants to be noticed, gain champions and effectively progress their career.”— Josh Blair, EVP Human Resources & Chief Corporate Officer, TELUS Corporation, Vancouver

“Employees are always asking: what does it take to be a future leader – your book tells them if they want to listen.  You gave many real life examples that make the read enjoyable but also real for the reader. Thank you so much for taking the time and passing on your learnings to others who are currently in the same situation or will be soon.  The path and vision you paved for others to see is insight they would not normally get unless they were being mentored or are living it.”— Shane Sabatino Senior VP, Human Resources, The Brick Group, Edmonton Canada

If you want to accelerate your career you have to find a way to stand out not fit in.

Read on and find out how to do it.

BE DiFFERENT YOU! is available at the following retailers.

Cheers,
Roy
For all of my books, check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 1.1.21 at 09:00 am by Roy Osing
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December 31, 2020

What your career plan should look like to succeed during COVID-19

Source: Pexels

What your career plan should look like to succeed during COVID-19?

I’ve written many articles on how to have a successful career; but they have most of their relevance ‘in normal times’ when organizations went about their business without physical separation rules, without the need to redefine their business model on the run and without the ability to have employees working in an office environment.

It’s different now, and we don’t know when normal times will greet us once again.

Nevertheless, as individuals we must look to our long term future and not get punished by the (hopefully) short term challenges the pandemic imposes on us; we must journey on and take actions that will position us favourably for a successful future.

What does a COVID career plan look like?

It shrinks the planning horizon

The frame of reference for your plan is now down to a month from whatever you’ve been using up to now.
The 5-year plan is no longer a viable way to plot your career journey because in a pandemic, opportunities appear and disappear in a heartbeat. And if you’re not poised and ready to capitalize from an event that just shows up, you’re going to be on the sidelines away from the action.

A pandemic doesn’t have a smooth flow to it; it’s chaotic and unpredictable moment by moment. So your career plan has to ride it’s wave if you stand any chance of responding and adapting to it in a way that makes sense for you in the long haul.

Getting from ‘A’ to ‘B’ is not going to be a straight line these days; you’re going to have to weave your way to try and achieve your end goal. An inch forward; a lunge to the right; a step back; a leap forward is the process that you need to be prepared to participate in if you want your career to continue advancing.

Have a long term vision for yourself, but if you’re not prepared with a 30-day tactical plan, the long term will never show up — Roy, think long term; act short term.

It is online centric

Businesses are being forced to morph much of their operations to online; bricks and mortar selling and distribution is waning. This is creating a surge in demand for people who have skills relevant to an online play.

Benchmark Amazon to see the jobs available in the online world; choose one that fits your long term goal and get in the hunt now. And look at ways your existing skill set can be extended to include online requirements.
Online marketing is a great opportunity these days in the small business sector. Look there.

It is dominated by learning

In an environment like this that is changing unpredictably and fast, it’s critical to ‘keep your feet moving’, and learning is the core of successful adaptation and responsiveness.

The career options you have in this pandemic are proportional to what you know about the opportunities that are revealed. What successful organizations decided to do is the source of your learning.
Choose learning as your core competency during this pandemic and follow what you discover.

It has experimentation and ‘tries’ as themes

A pandemic is a stochastic environment that changes regularly and unpredictability, which means you can’t pick a path and stick religiously to it.
You have to be prepared to shift and pivot based on new circumstances and try different things to move forward toward your goal. What this means is that you must try new opportunities as they arise to see if they are right for you.

Don’t dismiss an interesting prospect because you don’t believe it’s consistent with your long term career aspirations; in a pandemic you don’t have the luxury of foregoing anything that can contribute to your learning portfolio.
Take a chance. Try it out. Find out if it’s the right thing for you by doing it not by thinking about it.

It has ‘COVID mentors’

Even though the pandemic is fast paced with little or no rhythm, it does have people who are leading their organizations to success; individuals who have been able to meander their way through the challenges posed by the new forces and survive.
Find a few of these people and get close to what they’ve done. Forget about academic pedigrees; select people who are actually doing great things in chaotic times.

You don’t have to personally get to know them, all you need to do is be a student of their work.
Study the strategy and actions they’ve taken and the results they’ve achieved.
Follow them. Listen to them. Copy them.

It’s tactical in design

A planning period measured in days as opposed to years requires a commitment to being tactical in your approach.
This means being extremely nimble in the way you approach your challenge. You have to be ‘on your tiptoes every moment and have your spider senses on to provide the input you need to shape your tactics.

In addition, tactics require that you have a laser focus on job availability. It’s a sequential paradigm that seeks to put together a string of job successes that you hope leads you — but doesn’t promise you — to where you want to go.
This is a highly pragmatic way to move forward because career success is generally measured through a retrospective lens; you conclude success by looking back on what you did.

Despite the pandemic, you can pursue your career goals. The journey just looks different.
No big deal because winning and success are all about adapting to what’s in front of your face, right?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead book series

• Posted 12.31.20 at 04:14 pm by Roy Osing
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December 19, 2020

3 practical actions to take when your career is at risk

3 practical actions to take when your career is at risk.

The Covid-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-generation event. Therefore, it is, in some ways, the perfect time to make a once-in-a-lifetime move and change careers. But changing careers can be a daunting prospect at the best of times. So how do you go about doing it during a pandemic? Where do you start? What are some key steps that you should take?

Here are some tips on how to find your new dream job during a time of great upheaval and uncertainty.

1. Do some sector-by-sector homework

The pandemic has brought some sectors and industries to their knees. Others are projected to see shrinkage going into the longer-term. This is why it is important to do your homework and see where the jobs are.

Use job boards, recruitment agency adverts and LinkedIn and have a look at the sectors with the most results. Once you have a sense of who is hiring and where, you can begin to look at the average job requirements.

You might already have transferable skills that are essential or desirable in whichever sector has grabbed your attention. If you do not, fear not, many sectors that are still growing are actively recruiting fresh talent off the back of their potential and life experience.

That being said, you will probably need to be prepared to upskill or even reskill. Don’t forget that soft skills are also key in recruitment processes. You must show that you are able to deal with colleagues and other stakeholders.

Communication, conflict management and negotiation skills training are some of the most in-demand areas of development that can help you to enhance your performance and have an appealing profile for recruiters.

2. Go back to school

This does not mean spending three years or more sitting in a university lecture hall once again, it simply means embracing new challenges.

Most career changes, even if it is to another sector that is directly related to your current one, will require you to undertake some sort of education. This could be a few shorter courses, a new certification or even an intensive course that will give you a completely new set of skills in a very short timeframe. You can get inspired by taking vocational courses that can open new opportunities in many fields.

As so many people are now having to actively return to education, or at least thinking of doing so, governments around the world are putting special funding in place for this sort of education. Take full advantage of this and see what funding and course options are available to you.

As important as upskilling and reskilling are, you also have to think about your network.

3. Make and renew connections

Reaching out to your network is the cornerstone of any successful career change. If you do not already have a LinkedIn account, make one and spend some time making it the best it can be. Remember, it can make as much of a first impression as meeting someone face-to-face can.

Look at your network, see what connections they have to any sectors into which you might want to move. But also add to your network, increase it and build it up.

Attend networking events, be there in-person or online, send out contact requests, reach out to former colleagues. These are all excellent ways of adding to your network. You can also add friends into your network. In doing this, you potentially pave the way for one of your friends’ contacts offering you work in your new sector.

The key points

Whether your career change is driven by want or necessity, you will need to do your homework. You should start by looking at the sectors that are hiring and seeing which ones appeal to you the most. Once you have done that, you can start looking at the job requirements of the sectors that have caught your interest.

Remember, you might not match the requirements perfectly, but you will certainly have plenty of transferable skills.

But, equally, do be aware that you might need to return to education. Fortunately, many governments are putting funding in place for this.

Lastly, look at your network, look at their connections, build up your network and add friends into it. If you do all of this, then you will have built yourself a strong launch pad into your new career.

— Luke Sandford is a writer and content producer at Educations Media Group. Currently based in Lund, he is originally from the UK and graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2018 with a BA in Education. He has since written for several outlets and has worked as an English teacher, both at home and abroad. Luke’s passion for travelling and experiencing new cultures directly impacts his work as he seeks to create engaging, informative and useful content for a wide audience.

• Posted 12.19.20 at 06:52 am by Roy Osing
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December 2, 2020

Why more amazing women are now attending MBA school

Source: Pexels

Why more amazing women are now attending MBA school.

BE DiFFERENT or be dead failed to reach the ears of many business school programs for years as they have a history of being singularly and exclusively male.

Globally, back in 1972, of the 30,433 graduates who received an MBA, only 1,201 were women.

Fortunately, it seems like that gap is closing and differentiation is finally breaking down the doors at business schools as this past year MBA programs had a record number of females enrolled.

This rise in women enrolment in MBA programs can be attributed to many things. Namely, the growing versatility of a business degree, more supportive campus organizations and policies, focused recruiting efforts and the increasing acceptance of Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores as opposed to DescriptionThe Graduate Management Admission Tests (GMAT) exclusively. The most promising of those reasons being the versatility of a business degree.

Before, an MBA was a ticket to Wall Street and big money on a train mainly ridden by men.
You went to business school, performed in cut-throat environments, developed a shark-like instinct and graduated to big banks.

Today, however, your MBA can lead to a countless number of opportunities.

For women, that conversion usually comes in the form of entrepreneurship.

In 1972, that same year a mere 1,201 women worldwide graduated with an MBA, women-owned businesses only represented 4.6% of all businesses.

Now, women-owned businesses represent 42% of all businesses in the U.S., according to American Express.

This opportunity for women to empower themselves to start their own businesses is a huge motive for women to attend business schools. They can sharpen their natural sense of opportunity into actionable lessons and carry those lessons to blaze trails of their own.

The Forte Foundation also predicts this trend will keep climbing up and to the right.

In 2019, women made up 39% of full-time enrollment in MBA programs. The foundation’s goal is to reach gender parity (a 50/50 gender split) by 2030. A goal that they feel is very doable and one that will leave MBA classrooms finally looking different: they’ll look diverse.

— GreatBusinessSchools gives business students a portal that tells them everything they need to know before they commit to business education. Our aim is to take students from the decision to attend business school all the way to an application and acceptance.

• Posted 12.2.20 at 04:16 am by Roy Osing
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