Peggy Klaus (12 page)

Fortunately for Bernice, she didn’t have to suffer through more than one heart-stopping experience to realize that she had to prepare and practice for this inevitable fastball. By her second interview, however, she was zapping that zinger with a carefully constructed bragologue. As of this writing she is deciding between two offers.

MAKE THE LEAP

“I know it may not look like it, but I’m perfect for this job.”

Howard was one of my very first clients on Wall Street. Three years ago, he decided to leave that world, where he had spent thirteen years as head of a multimillion-dollar research department, to work in the nonprofit field. First, however, he took two years off and fulfilled his dream of writing and publishing the Greek version of
Roots
, a cultural travelogue tracing the stories his grandmother had shared with him growing up.

When he reemerged in search of nonprofit work, he knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. He figured he had six strikes against him: (1) He was a middle-aged guy. (2) He had taken off a chunk of time at an age when people are expected to be seriously into their careers. (3) He was switching to a field in which he had no formal experience. (4) The country was in the middle of one of the worst recessions ever, meaning that few were hiring. (5) He was going to have to beat down the stereotype of an insensitive corporate “slasher,” as he moved from one of the most cutthroat industries on earth to the more benign and gentlemanly nonprofit world. (6) He had to overcome his reluctance to toot his own horn.

A self-confessed introvert, Howard was one of the smartest and most accomplished professionals I had ever met, yet I had always had to drag every good deed out of him. Despite these formidable odds, we worked together taking a full inventory of his skills, personality, and history. We filled his brag bag with brag bites and bragologues galore, so that he came to the interviewing arena fully armed.

“But … you don’t need to brag if you can deliver.”

Oy, this makes me crazy! It makes no sense. Why do people say this? Does it mean that anyone who talks about something she has accomplished is incompetent? Puh-leeeze.

As we’d predicted, the interviews always started off with zingers like, “So why do you want go into the nonprofit world when you will be paid half to two-thirds less than what you made on Wall Street?” Instead of getting defensive, he calmly answered, “At this point in my life, I am lucky to have made enough money and am comfortable with taking a salary cut.” He always added, “I realized how much I wanted to do this kind of work when I looked back at the last five years and noticed that I had spent all my free time outside of the office working with nonprofit groups. I was an active member of one board and became a management consultant to two others. I helped them design and stick to a budget, hire administrative staff, and implement their technology systems. I was also able to use my IT background, having developed the first web library in the early nineties—unheard of even in financial firms— which I managed to build with just ten people and roll out globally six months ahead of schedule to thirty-five thousand clients.” He then further quelled their fears by adding that he would not be the nonprofit Al Dunlap. “At my old job I was charged with reducing the budget for analysts’ reports by fifty million dollars. I did it without firing a single soul; instead, I found more cost-efficient ways to do the research and print the reports.” They got it: If he could deliver for a large firm, he could be effective with an organization one-sixteenth its size.

STAR PLAYER VS. TEAM SPIRIT

“How can I claim credit when my most impressive work experience is from a team effort?”

A client of mine, who worked as an assistant brand manager for a packaged-goods company, felt uncomfortable taking credit for successful sales force initiatives because he had played only a small part in a much larger collaborative effort. I recommended that he break down the project into ten parts that were all key to the project’s success, then asked him to talk about the two or three he was the most involved in, being sure to underscore the team effort. His bragologue sounded like this:

I grew up eating so much Cap’n Crunch that I could have joined CEA, Cereal Eaters Anonymous, so I was in heaven in my last position launching a new breakfast cereal. What’s more, I was fortunate to work with an amazing group of colleagues and was able to learn so much more from the collaboration than I ever would have on my own. The team leader had twenty years of experience in the ready-to-eat-cereal industry and was a wonderful mentor. By the end of the project, I felt like I had soaked up at least half of those years just from working so closely with her! I was responsible for managing the research and sales data and creating all of our reports. It’s really important to me that information is presented in a clear and concise manner and that reports have an attractive and simple-to-follow appearance. During the project I received many compliments on my work from the manager and from my colleagues. Our company president sent an e-mail congratulating all of us when the project was completed, and he specifically mentioned how much he liked the format of the final report, which I had produced.

TRUTH TRICKS

“I don’t know what to say when they ask for a reference from my last boss; frankly, she didn’t like me.”

Okay, so you and your boss never bonded. She didn’t like you much and you were not crazy about her. Still, you can turn this to your brag advantage as Jessica learned to do. When she no longer could stand working for her high-strung, demanding boss, who’d had it in for her from Day One, Jessica walked away from her job of two years as an advertising representative. This is the bragologue she developed to zap the zinger:

I learned a lot from Bonnie and developed my skills a tremendous amount, but eventually I outgrew the position and wanted a job with more responsibilities. I had expanded my client base to three times the size of when I first started and held the top two accounts in the firm. I was ready for bigger challenges; I wanted to manage projects and really test my expertise. To be candid, Bonnie and I had differences of opinion about how things should be done, and so she is not the best person to ask for a reference. I do, however, have three other colleagues, one of whom is a founding partner at the firm. She would be happy to talk with you about my work.

BRAGGING THROUGH YOUR WEAK POINTS

“So tell us about your biggest weakness.”

You should be prepared to answer this perennial favorite of seemingly every interviewer, one that is sure to get you squirming in your chair. The best way to respond is to gracefully acknowledge a liability, while spinning it as having a positive side with benefits that far outweigh the negatives. For example, my friend Lynn readily admits that having too much energy is her biggest weakness. In an interview, her bragologue should sound like this:

Some people might say that I have too much energy. And it’s true that being so energetic makes me prone to think I can do everything by myself. I have been known to take on too many tasks without delegating. Then when I get pressed for time, I can begin to talk so fast that I sound like Alvin the chipmunk. On the positive side, I get an amazing amount of things done. I can multi-task with the best of them, and at the end of a major project I don’t need much downtime to recover. Fortunately my high energy level is accompanied by a positive disposition and the optimism needed to see even challenging projects through to completion.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A SMALL DETAIL

“I have an MBA and five years of experience, but the clincher was something I hadn’t expected.”

Jennifer, a thirty-one-year-old analyst in the food industry, had been wanting for some time to make a move to the booming natural-foods sector when a ripe opportunity presented itself. Even though she had no professional experience in this industry niche, Jennifer’s brag bag was filled with natural-food nuggets from her personal history that she could leverage to show the company why they were a perfect match for each other. In her cover letter she talked about growing up in the health-food store that her mother owned, testing recipes in college for a famous natural-foods cookbook author, and nurturing a lifelong interest in organic farming. That, combined with a finely tuned résumé, seemed to do the trick. Within days she was asked to a screening interview with the HR director, followed by a callback with the person who would be her boss, then invited to meet with the company president. Each person asked Jennifer whether she had experience in the natural-products industry and she said, “Well, I did grow up in a health-food store!” And each interviewer replied, “Oh yeah, I remember that from your cover letter.” This moment became the springboard for Jennifer to mention how her early experiences with the family business led to a lifelong interest in health and nutrition as well. A seemingly little detail about growing up in a health-food store quickly developed into mythic proportions because her boss, it turned out, mentioned it in his all-points e-mail announcing her hire. As Jennifer recalls, “The first week on the job, it seemed that everyone I met brought it up to me, saying something like, ‘I hear you were the health-foods poster child. So tell me, what was it like growing up in your mother’s store?’ Who would have thought that such a personal detail would end up carrying the day?”

Crafting creative, memorable messages and stories about yourself and accomplishments is at the heart of your bragging campaign. A good preparation technique is to have a friend conduct a mock interview with you and to tape it on video. On playback, examine how you come across, concentrating on whether what you are saying sounds unique, interesting, credible, and compelling. Does it distinguish you from the pack of others who are applying for the same job? If you think someone else could just as easily be telling your story, it’s time to dig deeper for the golden nuggets that will set you apart.

CHAPTER 6

Performance Reviews: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

•  “Help! My performance review is tomorrow.”

•  “I was all ready to ask for a raise and promotion, but I lost my nerve.”

•  “Oh, it was really nothing.”

•  “He told me everything great he had accomplished since the last review, but none of it was part of his actual job.”

•  “He was stuck on these two little things and it drove me nuts.”

•  “The last thing I want to do in a performance review is call attention to my weak points.”

Lights, camera, action! Take Two. Performance reviews are right up there next to job interviews as the least favorite pastime for professionals. The challenge of convincing others you should get the job is now replaced with the challenge of convincing them that they have made the right choice. Despite managers finding them a chore and employees considering them torture, performance reviews are the perfect opportunity to turn up the volume on your career.

“But … people won’t like me if I say nice things about myself. I should let others do it for me.”

It’s wonderful when someone toots your horn, it really is—but don’t bet on it happening. And no one has your best interests at heart the way you do.

It’s never too early to start planning for your next performance review. If you’ve kept your brag bag up to date with a record of your accomplishments and milestones—and you’ve engaged in an ongoing performance review for yourself by strategically bragging all year long—then getting ready for your performance review will be easy. If not, you’ve got your work cut out for you. You’ll need to outline your progress since taking the job, or your last review, and assemble hard data that demonstrates what you’ve already done for the company and how you will do even more in the future. You see, when you don’t keep a log of your accomplishments, you’re more apt to forget the specifics that speak volumes about your value. And if you try to reconstruct a year’s worth of projects, successes, and challenges in the midst of the review, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to put on your best performance.

Today companies use all sorts of performance-review tools, but no matter what the tool, the best performance reviews let managers and employees have an honest two-way discussion about an employee’s milestones, mistakes, and areas for improvement. Don’t make the mistake of letting your manager do all the talking while you sit passively by and listen. It’s up to you to take the initiative and make sure your boss hears what you want him or her to hear.

DON’T WING IT

“Help! My performance review is tomorrow.”

Why do people wait until the day before their performance review to prepare? We so dread sitting in that hot seat that we’d rather take our chances and wing it. Well, you know the old wing-it rule, don’t you? Twenty percent of the time when you wing it, you do succeed in communicating what you need to in a very effective manner; the other 80 percent of the time you don’t. The worst thing you can do is walk into a performance review cold. Even lukewarm isn’t such a good idea. You need to be hot and fearlessly say what you have to without hemming and hawing, shuffling your feet, lowering your gaze, or becoming tongue-tied. Putting your brag bag in order prepares you to present yourself in the most positive light possible and to address any concerns your boss might raise.

“I am amazed at how lackadaisical some employees are when it comes to performance reviews,” says Paul, the vice president of creative services at an Internet start-up, who reviews eight employees every quarter. “They see the whole process as burdensome, rather than an opportunity to take the spotlight, talk about their accomplishments, and spend some quality time with the boss discussing their future. They put so little time into the written self-evaluation—which they pass in at the last minute, leaving me no time to absorb it. And then they come into my office and sit there expecting
me
to do all the talking. Instead of being a dialogue, it’s a one-way monologue of me basically spewing out what I expect of them. It’s really quite simple: The ones who spend time preparing for performance reviews are the ones who get my attention. I just see them as more committed to their careers and the company’s future.”