Duckbeaver

Simon Johnson, a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, (formerly the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund) has a great article at the Atlantic. Johnson draws parallels between the ongoing financial crisis on Wall Street and the many political-economic crises that result in emerging market economies due to the power of oligarchs over political institutions.

Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason—the powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit—and, most of the time, genteel—oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are the controlling shareholders. When a country like Indonesia or South Korea or Russia grows, so do the ambitions of its captains of industry. As masters of their mini-universe, these people make some investments that clearly benefit the broader economy, but they also start making bigger and riskier bets. They reckon—correctly, in most cases—that their political connections will allow them to push onto the government any substantial problems that arise.

Because these elites have so much influence over the political institutions that theoretically govern and regulate them, the oligarchs are able to successfully prevent meaningful reforms and instead transfer losses onto the state and citizens.

Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

It’s a great non-partisan article and certainly paints Wall Street in an unfavourable light. Why it resonated so much with me is shortly before I read it, I had been reading Money For Nothing, an article on Forbes by Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Instapundit fame.

Reynolds argues that current Wall Street political donators might want to reconsider where their financial contributions are headed because of the backlash surrounding the AIG bonus fiasco.

If these donations had been given out of love and admiration, Wall Street donors would have reason to feel jilted. But if–as is generally the case with political donations–they were more in the order of protection money, then Wall Street donors may instead feel duped. They might want to ask themselves what protection, exactly, they got for their investment.

…

Perhaps folks in the financial industry should tell them no and consider donating to candidates who believe in free markets–and who possess a bit of backbone–instead. If incumbents’ offers of “protection” are illusory, you might as well support people who believe in what you do. A Congress with a sense of decency and a respect for markets would be better protection than the questionable gratitude of politicos anyway.

Now I agree with Reynolds when he says that a lot of political elites are pandering to the electorate with their attacks on Wall Street and conveniently forgetting the role government and regulators played, or lack thereof. But I don’t think the answer is making sure that politicians who are bought, stay bought.

Perhaps the answer is to limit the overwhleming influence that the financial elites have over political institutions and strengthening democratic institutions so the US can prevent the riots from getting too large.

Mentors are an important part of one’s career and both personal and professional development, which is why I’ve been eager to develop some for my growth.

I currently have two mentors that pull double duty, as I knew them personally before I worked for them professionally. The relationship that developed was quite organic and moved through several phases before it’s current state. Recently though, I gained a new mentor through the Business Mentoring for the Arts program and have attempted to build the relationship in a much more structured and self-aware manner.

Having someone that wants to help with your development but isn’t already personally invested is a great opportunity. Working with my mentor, I’ve been a lot more effective at carrying out my career exploration as I have someone to be accountable to for the tasks I set for myself. She’s also been helpful in managing my own expectations, especially vital when you have so many competing priorities for attention and an overwhelming desire to deliver outstanding work in all areas.

My current month’s mentorship goal is to identify potential candidates for informational interviews for four self-selected careers: policy analyst, public relations, local government, and career development. Through taking with people doing things that interest me, I’ll hopefully get a better idea where I’m going to be the most successful and happy. Coming out of our last session, we identified the need to be challenged and have an opportunity to grow as being the most important aspects of a job for me, so I’ll have to tailor my questions around answering that.

Once I’ve made contact and set up interviews, I’m going to be keeping some of Penelope Trunk advice at hand. I’ve really benefited from her article, “How I Got My Current Favorite Mentor“, which has already helped give me some ideas about the role of a mentee and will I think add another component to the informational interviews — the chance to interview for new potential mentors.

All this studying of mentorship roles should really come in handy when I become a mentor for the next BMA group. Delivering a workshop on my area of expertise, I think it’s clear I’ll be able to help out a mentee with making the transition from school life to career life. And if I need to, I can always ask a mentor for advice.

The best way to deal with compensation is to have done your research first.

You can often find what the market will pay by looking at similar job postings for in your area or checking out salary guides like Salary Expert or Monster’s salary guide. This should give you a rough band of wages that they’ll offer and you’ll be able to get an idea of how good the offer is. Go through your costs and figure out what your ideal wage is, what you’re expecting for, and what you’re willing to take. These 3 numbers should create your negotiating band and you should have a rough idea of what they translate to in appropriate measurements — per annum, monthly, hourly, etc.

Also, try to think of what non-salary things you’re willing to accept if they have a strict pay structure — things like extra vacation time, better health care, paid training/ education vouchers, flextime scheduling, etc. Another item could be accepting a lower starting wage but having faster scheduled increases, either benchmarked to time or targets. Make sure that these are in your contract when you sign, as performance reviews always seem to slip on the importance scale for busy managers. The more prepared you are, the better your bargaining position.

If you’re going to bring it up, first make sure you’ve talked about the position and what the duties are and what you’ll excel at — you don’t want to position yourself as only being there for the pay cheque. But at the end of the meeting, if it hasn’t been brought up then it’s okay. Try to place it in the larger context of the job, “So now that I have a better idea of what you see as the job deliverables and feel comfortable about my ability to really add value to COMPANY XYZ, perhaps we should discuss the compensation package.”

It’s generally better to have the other person bring up a number first but if you have to, always start with your ideal or perhaps a bit above and give it as a band. Refer to the fact that your market research suggests $XX,000 – $XX,000 is the industry standard to improve your position.

When negotiating, remember to focus on the value you add. “Based on my past success at reducing costs over 300k for COMPANY XYZ, I feel that $XX,000 – $XX,000 is a good number.” Be honest, both with the company and yourself, and you should do fine.

During a recession, the number of applicants per opening skyrocket. I heard recently that a position with a major retailer that would have had six applications just three or four months ago is now getting over 90. With this kind of workload, employers and hiring managers are looking for ways to quickly screen applicants and pick the cream of the crop.

Having worked in employment services for a number of years, I see a lot of clients that really dislike the job search process. They simply throw a few broad skills and recent employment history on a resume and think that’s going to cut it.  A year ago when just being a healthy body and having a willingness to show up was enough to get you a job, that might have been fine. But in today’s climate it shows up for what it is — you’re hoping the employer will do your job search for you.

If you’re looking for work in kind of related fields, say automotive repair and general handyman, as well as anything that will pay the bills, then you should have three resumes.  While a mechanical aptitude may be a skill that you list on all three, knowing how to fix a transmission is probably not important to an employer who’s looking for someone to do small plumbing repair jobs in an apartment complex. Knowing how to do maintenance on various landscaping equipment probably doesn’t help the employer desperate for a new brake technician.

What’s worse are those resumes that make things really general, like listing a skill as a vague “Automotive Repair”. The thinking behind this is “I can do it all and if I put something specific, it might limit me.” But that’s not what this tells employers, it actually says, “I’m not sure how I can help you but I need a job.” Employers aren’t looking to give you a job, even if they’ve posted a job ad. They’re looking for someone to help solve their problem, whether this is to sell more dental equipment to dentists, quickly ring through customers at the supermarket or handle the overflow of repairs coming in as customers decide their old jalopy can last another year. You need to be telling employers how you can solve those problems and do it well.

Finally, some job seekers say, “I don’t want to write three resumes. I don’t like computers and it takes me forever to do just one. Besides, when I get an interview than I can tell them all that stuff.” But, of course, getting that interview becomes less likely if when looking at a resume an employer doesn’t know how you’ll best help them.

And not wanting to spend the admittedly hours it takes to write a good resume means, “My time is more important than yours and you should just give me a job.” The average employee costs about $150,000 to hire, once you count wages, training, overhead and lost productivity.

That bare bones resume that you feel is “good enough” has got to compete against a whole lot more candidates in this economic climate. I’m not saying you won’t get hired with it and there’s no guarantee that an excellent resume will land you the position. But if you’ve sent out a ton of resumes and you’re not getting the response you want, try taking a look at the message you’re sending.

I came across this video Twitter Vote Report on the Twitter Blog. It’s interesting to see this behaviour in America, similar in action to young activists in Iran during elections. Text messaging also played a critical role in the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005 and the Philippines People Power II in 2001.

For the past year or so, we’ve slowly begun to realize that we’re moving into the downward flow of the economic cycle; the housing bubble has burst and we haven’t yet started building the next. Hiring freezes are being put into place and layoffs are occurring in many different industries. So now is as good as time any to ask yourself, are you maximizing all possible revenue streams?

Just read Brad DeLong’s break down of the financial crisis. It is one of the first layman long views I’ve read since the start in August that offers a look at what’s going on and how the US is grappling with the downturn.

When I was studying political science as an undergrad, I used to have a friend/nemesis that I would name-drop with. We liked to email officials and scholars, soliciting comments or feedback concerning our 3rd year paper topics and then we’d compare responses. She won when the president of the ruling party of South Africa responded to one of her missives.

I think about this lately because I need to get back to emailing people who I think could give me some helpful information about topics I’m interested. Only now its my career path I want to discuss in greater detail. Employment services are good because I help people market themselves with their documents, a resume that succinctly outlines their qualifications or a cover letter that speaks of passion and authenticity. For more committed clients, I can talk about efforts that can make with social media to further their career. And while I like the underlying communication and professional development aspects, I’m getting ready to make my next move. I’m just not quite sure what that will be, so I’m thinking I need to ask people who seem passionate about what they’re doing.

One of the things I’ve got to focus more on is transferable skills I’m developing and see what other industries I can apply them to, looking were I can help out a company and continue to grow. Recently, I listened to a podcast by Llyod Grofton of Liberate Media where he commented about one the biggest crises facing the PR industry, a lack of skills. He offers some suggestions about perhaps reaching outside PR and journalistic areas and look for talented candidates that have client-focus, technology or design backgrounds. I’ve been following Liberate Media for a couple of months, as I’ve enjoyed their blog articles.

In a bizarre coincidence, or, assuming there is a skill shortage in PR, not so much, Nicky Fried from Strategic Communications wrote about skills needed from internal communications and engagement employees:

A recent article from Ragan talks for the value of hiring journalism graduates in corporate communications. Maybe – if you are hiring for writing ability and someone who understands a variety of different social media. But you better make sure that person is able to develop other skills.

Internal communications is about a great deal more. Key to effective internal communications is the understanding that this is a strategic endeavor focused on facilitating discussions throughout the organization with the goal of performance improvement.

Whether it’s external or internal communications that’s next up for me, continuing to develop new skills is clearly a necessary component.

I attended the BC Association of Integrated Marketers (BC AIM) luncheon, a couple weeks back at the Four Seasons in Vancouver. The lunch wasn’t that spectacular but I really enjoyed the speakers Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo, of Capulet Communications. The presentation was meant as an introduction about social media to traditional marketers, so it was all pretty basic but I think I picked up some good tips on how to speak about social media to those not in the echo chamber. I’m attending Third Tuesday Vancouver tomorrow and Darren’s speaking again. It’ll be interesting to compare and contrast the presentations geared towards different audiences and hopefully I can pick up some more tips.

One of the challenges I’m currently facing is how to get more buy in from other team members about using social media to improve productivity and knowledge sharing. Our internal blog hasn’t been getting quite the impact me and senior management were hoping for. I think having an info session to really introduce it properly and getting a chance to show just how easy it is to interact with will improve engagement. The other key piece is that through our initial internal testing we’ve been able to more closely define who the target audience will be.

When we first started looking at having a blog, some of the questions I asked was who the intended audience was – clients, industry peers, internal or funders. I think the newness of the project – for both management and me – made it harder to determine, and the fact that the blog is in addition to my other duties instead of being it or primarily it. Now that we’ve been posting for a month internally, directions are becoming more defined and we’ve realized while clients will gain some benefit, they’ll probably be our smallest audience.

Instead, our audience will probably be industry peers. I haven’t had the opportunity to do a lot of vigorous community monitoring but it does appear that we’ll be one of the early adopters within the local employment services field. The benefits of course will allow the organization to become a leader (hopefully) in the use of social media and this should also allow for individuals to establish reputations for being leaders in their niches. By outlining the value of the blog to team members in terms of what’s in it for them, buy in will likely increase and improve the ROI for the organization.