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5 Questions to Ask When Starting a New Job

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Professional transitions | Employment | Success in the workplace  |Career advice

by Michael D. Watkins | April 09, 2019

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The actions you take during your first few months in a new job have a major impact on your success or failure. Build positive momentum early on and it will propel you through your tenure. Make some early missteps and you could face an uphill battle for the rest of your time in the job.

The biggest challenge leaders face during these periods is staying focused on the right things. You are drinking from the proverbial fire hose while trying to get settled and figure out how to start to have an impact. It’s easy to take on too much or to waste your precious time. So, it helps to have a set of questions to guide you. Here are the five most important ones to ask…and keep on asking on a regular basis:

How will I create value?

This is the single most important question. Why were you put in this role? What do key stakeholders expect you to accomplish? In what timeframe? How will your progress be assessed? As you seek to answer this question, keep in mind that the real answer may not be what you were told when you were appointed or recruited for the job; it may also evolve as things progress and you learn more. Remember, too, that you will probably have multiple stakeholders to satisfy, not just your boss, and that they may have divergent views of what constitutes “success.” It’s essential to understand the full set of expectations so you can reconcile and satisfy them to the greatest degree possible. Read more…

Philosophy can teach children what Google can’t | Charlotte Blease

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With jobs being automated and knowledge being devalued, humans need to rediscover flexible thinking. That starts in schools

3500 Ireland’s president Michael D Higgins: ‘The teaching of philosophy is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to empower children.’ Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

At the controls of driverless cars, on the end of the telephone when you call your bank or favourite retailer: we all know the robots are coming, and in many cases are already here. Back in 2013, economists at Oxford University’s Martin School estimated that in the next 20 years, more than half of all jobs would be substituted by intelligent technology. Like the prospect of robot-assisted living or hate it, it is foolish to deny that children in school today will enter a vastly different workplace tomorrow – and that’s if they’re lucky. Far from jobs being brought back from China, futurologists predict that white-collar jobs will be increasingly outsourced to digitisation as well as blue-collar ones.

How should educationalists prepare young people for civic and professional life in a digital age? Luddite hand-wringing won’t do. Redoubling investment in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) subjects won’t solve the problem either: hi-tech training has its imaginative limitations.

In the near future school-leavers will need other skills. In a world where technical expertise is increasingly narrow, the skills and confidence to traverse disciplines will be at a premium. We will need people who are prepared to ask, and answer, the questions that aren’t Googleable: like what are the ethical ramifications of machine automation? What are the political consequences of mass unemployment? How should we distribute wealth in a digitised society? As a society we need to be more philosophically engaged.

Amid the political uncertainties of 2016, the Irish president Michael D Higgins provided a beacon of leadership in this area. “The teaching of philosophy,” he said in November, “is one of the most powerful tools we have at our disposal to empower children into acting as free and responsible subjects in an ever more complex, interconnected, and uncertain world.” Philosophy in the classroom, he emphasised, offers a “path to a humanistic and vibrant democratic culture”. Read more…

How to market yourself with a winning résumé

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by Dennis McCafferty | 12-08-2016

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Are you one of the many executives who haven’t looked at their résumé in months … or years? Do you think it’s not necessary because you’re secure and happy with your current company and feel that revising your résumé would be a waste of time? Well, you may want to reassess your thinking, because career experts recommend that you review your résumé at least once a year. After all, résumés are often submitted as part of consideration for award nominations, guest bylines, speaking events at industry conference and partnership opportunities. It would also help to have a strong résumé in case your organization gets involved in a merger or acquisition. To this end, we’ve come up with the following best practices for résumés, which is adapted from an article by Lisa Rangel, titled “9 Executive Résumé Trends for 2017.” Founder of ResumeCheatSheet.com, Rangel is an executive résumé writer and official LinkedIn moderator at Chameleonresumes.com. Career Toolkit recently named her as one of the top 28 résumé writers. – See more at: http://www.cioinsight.com/it-management/careers/slideshows/how-to-market-yourself-with-a-winning-resume.html#sthash.pcWgX3Gw.dpuf

10 Non-Negotiable Traits Your New Hire Must Possess

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BY YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR COUNCIL
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IMAGE: Getty Images

 

Want a shot at landing your dream startup gig? While having a polished resume and company connections can help get your foot in the door, it’s your ingrained character traits that will likely determine your ability to thrive and make an impact on the business you’re so eager to work for.

Ten entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share qualities they believe all new hires must possess in order to land a coveted position in their business.

1. Adaptability

The Internet space changes so quickly that what worked even two years ago may not work now. The best employees are not necessarily the most experienced, but are rather those who can learn the new rules of the game the quickest. Usually these people are smart, creative, have an insatiable love of learning and are always striving to improve their game.–Charlie Graham, Shop It To Me, Inc.

2. Coachability

I’ve found that with the right hire, new skills and procedures can be easily learned. That willingness to learn new things and forget old ways, however, will probably never change. That’s why I look at a new hire’s coachability first, and their previous knowledge second.–Elle Kaplan, LexION Capital

3. Agility

In a startup, everything changes quickly — whether it is your product roadmap, skills of your employee, titles, or market/industry you are in. For example, in the last two years, we rewrote our whole product and changed the tech stack. It is very important that the new hire does not become stuck on what title and role she is looking for or a certain type of work she wants to perform. You should join a startup for the vision.–Shilpi Sharma, Kvantum Inc.

4. Respectfulness

Respect means a new hire will treat his co-workers, clients and others fairly and consistently. When a new hire has respect for differing opinions and positions, mutually agreeable resolutions can be discovered. Respect also means accepting the cultural, socio-economic and personal beliefs of others without letting those interfere with getting the job done.–Nicole Munoz, Start Ranking Now  Read more…

What Do Your Employees Really Think of You?

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Trustworthiness is an essential quality workers expect from their managers, according to a recent survey that focused on workers and their managers.

 

 

Workers generally give their managers high marks on a wide variety of needed performance measures, according to a recent survey from Instructure. Overall, they feel that their bosses are effective at expressing industry knowledge and expertise, while cultivating a collaborative culture. Managers are also giving timely and constructive feedback, while establishing transparency about department and company developments. The latter point remains critical, as the vast majority of workers rank trustworthiness among the most essential qualities of managers. In addition, they value managers who are creative while taking the time to train staffers on needed job skills. The findings convey a generally positive state-of-mind among today’s professionals, as most of them feel secure in their jobs and say that all of their talents and skills are put to use at work. In addition, they say they receive recognition when they do good work, and like working for their employers. A total of 1,050 U.S. employees took part in the research.

Dennis McCafferty is a freelance writer for Baseline Magazine.

– See more at: http://www.cioinsight.com/it-management/careers/slideshows/what-do-your-employees-really-think-of-you.html#sthash.30E1jjzg.dpuf

– View slideshow