Dabbling

There is a difference between a job and a hobby. When you decide to do something for fun, to help you relax or to take your mind off your problems, you don’t have to do it well and you don’t have to do it forever.

These are revolutionary ideas to most people.

My friends love to talk about the number of things I’ve quit. I used to take ballroom dance lessons, but I quit. I did some painting, but I gave that up, too.
I strung beads on wire and made my own jewelry for a while. I took a camera out into the woods and photographed nature. Ten years ago, I took up sewing. I made a dress and two skirts, but I haven’t sewed anything since.

These are what I call hobbies. Hobbies aren’t things I ever want to do professionally. I don’t need to be good at them.

I can spend every spare hour for weeks on a hobby, and then abandon it and never go back.

I dabble.

So often, other people seem to feel the need to apologize for dabbling. If you ask someone whether they play golf, for instance, most people will say either yes or no. Yes, if they work hard at the game, play regularly, take lessons and generally care about it. No, if they don’t do all these things.

People don’t understand the freedom of dabbling.

I can sit down at a piano and pick out a simple tune, but I can’t really play. The pleasure I get from my simple tune is just as great as it would be if I could play Beethoven’s Fifth, which I never will because I don't care that much. It takes dedication and passion to accomplish that. You can't dabble your way to Carnegie Hall.

There's nothing wrong with dabbling when it comes to golf or photography, but if you are a consultant, you can't dabble at networking. You can't dabble at maintaining your skills. You can't dabble at managing you career. Or rather, you can, of course, but you are giving up success and security.

There's freedom in dabbling with your hobbies. With your job, the freedom comes when you stop dabbling.

Social vs Business Networking

Standing outside church on Christmas Eve, Cody Kanz and I talked about how much fun we were having reading each other's status updates on Facebook. He asked me if I thought Facebook was going to change the way we interact with our friends. Considering he is 20 years younger and ten times cooler than I am, I thought it was extraordinarily diplomatic of him to wonder what I thought about anything. At the time, I didn't have much of an answer for him. I think I said something like, "Uh, well, that's an interesting question."

It is an interesting question and one that I've revisited many times in the weeks since Christmas. I still don't have an answer, but I've expanded the question to include business contacts. Now it's an even more interesting question.

Will Facebook join LinkedIn and Twitter and become an indispensable business networking tool? Has it already happened? I think so.

In every Interviewing Skills workshop and Job Search Seminar we teach, Casey and I talk about the importance of making sure your online reputation matches your business reputation when you are looking for a job. Even very low-tech recruiters now Google their candidates before submitting them for open positions. They're going to have to work a lot harder to take you seriously as an applicant after they've seen pictures of you drinking shots at a party and passed out on a boat in the middle of the lake.

When people ask me how to start building a business network, I always say "Talk to your friends." Now, this includes your online friends, and their friends, and their friends. The lines between social networking and business networking are blurring to the point that they may no longer exist.

If unemployment continues to rise and layoffs outpace hiring at major corporations, finding a job will require creativity and a willingness to leverage the contacts you have. This spring, an enormous number of graduating seniors will be spending Spring Break at home with their parents. They'll be talking to Mom and Dad and Aunt Ruth about who they know who might be hiring in June. They'll be begging their parents to host barbecues and cocktail parties where they will be networking like crazy.

Here's the thing they are going to learn: Mom and Dad and Aunt Ruth are all on Facebook already. So are their friends. They know what you've been up to.

So while I still don't have an answer for Cody about whether or not Facebook will change how we interact with our friends, I think maybe I should tell him that the economy and fear of unemployment will definitely change how we interact with Facebook.

Interviewing vs Dating

Author Jess McCann has a new book out called "You Lost Him at Hello" in which she coaches women who are looking for love to apply the same strategies that work in a sales environment to meeting men. (I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I don't have time to read the book. I only read the review, and yet, I feel free to talk about it. Sue me.)

McCann's point, as far as I can tell, is that there are two key elements when you are trying to meet new people. First, you have to be prepared. Have a plan for what you'll talk about and be prepared to tell your story so that someone will find you interesting and memorable. Second, you have to have the right attitude. Make eye contact, smile and demonstrate positive energy.

These are the same critical success factors that we've identified for people involved in a job hunt or interview situation. In a competitive job market, every conversation you have may result in an opportunity found...or an opportunity lost. The scary part is that you may never know that you missed an opportunity because you were talking about the crab dip instead of about yourself.

We even put together a tool to help you plan your Personal Pitch so that you are prepared to describe yourself in a few short sentences, rather than going on and on and never really making the point you want to make.

Preparation not only means planning what you will say. It also means planning some questions to ask. We tell our workshop participants that they should only talk about 50% of the time in a job interview. If you are talking all the time, you aren't asking enough questions.

Remember when you were in high school and your mom told you to ask questions and listen if you want to be considered a great conversationalist? It's still true in a dating situation and even more true when you are looking for a job, which leads me right back to Jess McCann's second point - attitude.

Positive Listening means you are smiling, responding to what is said, and clearly demonstrating your interest in the conversation. In this way, you show your positive attitude and make yourself more appealing, whether you are looking for a date or a job.

I love it when multiple people who have never heard of each other arrive at the same conclusion at the same time. It gives me hope that there is Truth in the result.

Career Management Tip - The Master Resume

The new Information Age environment (mentioned in previous posts) means we change jobs more often than previous generations and, more importantly, we make no effort to hide that fact. Changing jobs is often the only way to get a promotion or keep your salary in line with the market.

For many, the only "chore" associated with changing jobs is producing a new resume. A resume is required whether you are applying for a new role within your current company or planning to move to a new one, and consultants need resumes even more often, since they are often submitted when a project is in the staffing phase.

I've found a solution to the resume challenge. I keep a "master resume" in a Word file. Every time I change jobs, learn a new skill or complete a project, I add it to the master resume. Every organization I've ever joined is listed. I've even maintain my address history in it, ever since I had to complete the background check to work in the gaming industry. (You wouldn't believe the amount of data required to get approval even if you are just being hired to provide IT advice.)

When someone calls me with a lead on a job that I might want, I can easily go into my master resume, make a copy, and delete all the items that do not apply to the new job. When a recruiter says, "send me an updated resume", I can do it in five minutes instead of hours. (I'm including procrastination time when I say "hours".)

Start your master resume now. No matter how far along in your career, it's never too late to start. As you think of special projects or additional details about a job from your past, go into the master resume and add them. Before you know it, you'll have 20 pages of raw material and you'll be ready for the next opportunity.