How Can I get Hired Without Playing the Race, Age or Disability Card?

July 6, 2008

Q: It is my opinion that the "bait and switch" tactics used by employers and their hired employment agencies is consistently used to screen the undesirable "minority" and/or “disabled” candidates from the better "match" non-minority, non-disabled candidates. Yet, in the face of the various adversities that prevents highly qualified candidates from becoming
gainfully employed, what can a candidate do without playing the race, age or disability card?
Harold R., HR Director, Omaha, NE

A: To begin with I am NOT an expert on racism. I am however a 64 year business professional with a disability (I walk with a cane) and have experienced discrimination from both of these arenas. Even though I am consider an “expert” in retention and other people issues, I was told recently that although I am filled with energy, the President of a particular company was reluctant to hire me to facilitate a management strategy seminar for his people because he wanted somebody that “looked whole.”

Considering I fly airplanes, walk, talk, dress, swim, manage a business, have an exercise regime, play catch with my grandson, facilitate a dozen seminars a year, am happily married and have spent a lifetime learning my trade, I was a bit irritated to say the least. So irritated in fact that I canceled the recruiting contract I had with them, even though it was lucrative and they “claimed” I was one of the few recruiters that every really performed for them.

My advice to you is the same as it is to all of my potential candidates. In order for me to present you as the “most place-able candidate” or better said……in order for YOU to prepare yourself to become the most place-able candidate it all comes down to the following; SKILLS, STABILITY, EXPERIENCE AND ATTITUDE

A. All companies ask me for the “skill set” first. If you don’t match the qualifications, why would you try to force a square peg into a round hole? All it does is offer frustration and a set up for a failure
B. Job hopping is a no-no. I recently read an article that says the Generation X & Y employees will change jobs 26 times in their career path. This is an atrocious goal in life. I hear from hiring managers, “why doesn’t he/she stay any longer than 2 years at any given job?” And I rhetorically respond, “Good question, why don’t they?”
C. You must learn your trade and then relearn your trade every day. Our world moves fast and change is a common word in most growing business environments. If you don’t have the skill sets required by an employer it probably won’t be a match, no matter how hard you try. What did you do in the last 12 months to improve yourself? Remember that YOUR resume is only a job description of who you were. You must be prepared to demonstrate to a prospective hiring manager what you plan to be and how your presence can impact their company in a positive way!

D. There are no longer any “give-me’s” in this world. Having an attitude that the new employer or current employer “owes you” is a destination to nowhere. It all begins with you the employee. Why fall into an impossible stereotype? Why not demonstrate your qualifications by example? My grandmother used to tell me, “deeds not words!”

When I speak with employers about employees they have terminated I hear, “they just acted like they didn’t want to be here; or he/she stood around with his/her hands in their pockets waiting for ME to do it; or He/she never contributed to the conversation, never offer good solutions to problems; or when the five o’clock buzzer rang, they were out the door like a shot.”

All these actions demonstrate why an employer wouldn’t want to keep an employee. And if you fit into these categories, change or the results will mirror your past.

Now from the management or hiring side of these issues I suggest the following;

1. Start looking at candidates from what assets and value that they bring to the organization.
2. Look at candidates with this thought, “if he/she has only five years left to work, how can I empower them to allow me to tap into their knowledge to grow the people in this department or company?”
3. Become known as a company that is a champion of PEOPLE. This will probably include soul searching and making decisions that you have probably not made in your “job hiring” past.
4. The results will be that you will have a work place that people will WANT to work and the word will spread and it will positively affect your sales and bottom line.
5. If one of your friends or parent was noticeably older than you or walked with a disability or had a different color of skin, would you tell him/her not to come to your house because you didn’t want the neighbors to know that you associate with “those types” of HUMAN BEINGS? I think not, so why do it in your business life?
6. QUALIFIED candidates will reward you, the company and their co-workers once given the opportunity to shine.

Go forth and make this a tremendous week for you and everyone around you.!

Regards,
George F. Mancuso
George F. Mancuso, CPC

How Can I Insure That I Will Be A Strong Leader?

June 29, 2008

Q: I am the president of a 100 employee manufacturing plant in the Midwest. I feel like I must always be a strong leader that cares about and deals effectively with people at all times. Can you offer any “magical” guidelines for me personally and that I can share with all of my employees at all levels?
Marvin L., Des Moines, IA

A: I love your term, “magical.” I really do wish I could waive the magic wand and poof…. all will be beautiful. LOL.

Let me offer you a few considerations that might help guide you in your work environment to recognize, understand, value and apply emotions effectively.

1. AWARENESS: You must be confident in knowing who you are and understand the impact on others of your strengths and weaknesses.
2. REGULATION: You must have the responsibility to manage your own feelings, thoughts and actions in a positive way that allows you to maintain an intrinsic and high standard of integrity.
3. MOTIVATION: As a leader or a member of a team, you have an obligation to develop continuously, your personal resources to the ever-changing, increasing demands of your profession.
4. AWARENESS: You must understand and be sensitive to the feelings, needs and concerns of the people around you that you “serve.”
5. RELATIONSHIPS: You bear the greatest responsibility for establishing, nurturing and where necessary, resolving differences with your interpersonal relationships with colleagues and again, the people you “serve.”
6. INFLUENCE: You have an obligation to foster desirable responses in others by serving as a role model as well as challenging, inspiring, enabling and encouraging everyone to work together toward mutual goals. In part, you achieve this by not being a micro-manager.

While these suggestions may not always be successfully applied, I hope they will be helpful reminders to you to always strive to be the highest quality of professional at all times.

Regards,

George F. Mancuso, CPC
Gman Business Resources, Inc.
www.GmanSearch.com

How Can I Keep Generation X and Y Employees Happy?

June 22, 2008

Q: Generation X and Y have their own approach to work that includes a task orientation, a focus on results and an eagerness for change. These sound like skills that companies would or should value in employees. Will Gen X and Y workers inherently make good employees?

A: A recent study claims that most Generation X and Y employees will change jobs up to 26 times in their working life! Although I personally find this alarming, there is a way to slow down the unsettling changes, AND help the X’s and Y’s find comfort in your company.

Businesses highly value employees who can "see the big picture," are adaptable, and are enthusiastic about managing change. Gen X and Y, with the same perspectives, do seem like they would make great employees. But why is that?

One aspect of this approach is the pervasive impact of video games. John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas write, in The Gamer Disposition in Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough Ideas for 2008, that online multiplayer games create the exact skills most desired in today’s knowledge workers. These are:

• They are bottom-line orientation
• They understand the power of diversity
• They thrive on change
• They see learning as fun
• They marinate on the “edge”

Seely and Brown see these individuals as learning (from these complex, adaptive, interactive systems) a range of skills such as flexibility, resourcefulness, meritocracy focus, and innovativeness.

And my two cents include:

• They want growth and they want it now
• They want to feel needed and loved
• If they are not feeling the need and the love they will pick up and move to the next company that promises that
• Most will begin looking elsewhere when they perceive they are in boring roles
• From their background in “games” they are very willing to play one scenario against another to accomplish their mindset

So now what can you as an Employer do if you hire an X or a Y into a sales, management or executive role?

• Begin the process at the interview and acceptance states
• Have a definition of the role, expectations beginning DAY ONE.
• Don’t procrastinate on the two points above, you MUST DO THIS
• Don’t micro-manage
• Have a defined process of growth
• Include them in discussion groups of growth
• Continually challenge them to achieve
• Have a method of feedback from them
• Respect their suggestions by discussing, understanding, evaluating for use
• Did I mention they hate being micro-managed?
• This list could go on to great lengths
• If you need help with these issues company wide, Gman Business Resources is here to help.

P.S. The first half of 2008 is almost over. Have you met your first half goals?

May this week find you with good health, good business and peace.

Regards,

George F. Mancuso, CPC

Why Did I Lose The Sale?

June 15, 2008

Q: George, I lost this account I have been working on for months and I’m really demoralized. I worked on this
deal using all the techniques you taught us in the Sales Strategy seminar, got close to them and knew the issues they were facing.
Our solutions were not only the best solutions, but the issues on which they based their decision weren’t particularly important.
I’m upset for two reasons; one that I lost and two that I believe that they lost as well. HELP!
Alicia L; Arvada, CO

A: The reality is, that the one with the best solutions or the highest sense of service isn’t always the one that wins the battle. Solutions and service are prerequisite for success, but the one who wins is not necessarily the best person with the best product but simply the best competitor. You are not in a club by yourself. More than one sales professional has fallen victim to the feeling, that if he/she were the best at everything he/she didn’t have to worry about the competition. Think about the story of the Tortoise and the Hare as exemplifies that statement as well.

Under estimating the competition abilities can easily be the destruction of the sales process for you. You may have outsold your competitor on the issues YOU deemed to be most important but it sounds like you failed to outsell the competition on the issues that THEY FELT was most important to THEM.

1. Know your competitors: Knowing your competitors includes knowledge of where they are weak, where they are strong, their services and products and compare all of that to your product and services. Determine where you can be attacked as well and prepare.

2. Keep a beginners mind; don’t get frustrated, don’t panic, view all objections raised by the prospect as opportunities to validate your products, services, company and YOU. These types of objections can many times be the direct pipeline into what is MOST IMPORTANT TO THE PROSPECT! Solve these issues and more and you’ve got the sale.

3. If you can control the issues you can control the sale. Pick the issues that give you the competitive edge and create an emotional reaction for the prospect. You’ve heard me say in past newsletters, “set the prospects hair on fire” with your enthusiasm.

4. Sell to the individual not the group as a whole; when speaking to a group don’t address just one person in the room. Survey the participants and do it more than once to be certain that there is not some objection in their mind that is going to raise its ugly head as soon as you leave the room. Again I say, control the issues and you control the sale.

5. The issues you choose must carry the emotional energy I mentioned above. You must carry yourself in a manner that exudes confidence, knowledge and demonstrates your strengths.

If you will recall from our seminar, I said many times, there is 4 key items to making the sale;

a. You must know yourself inside and out including all of your strengths and weaknesses.

b. You must know everything there is to know about your products or services

c. You must know your competitors

d. You must understand the intrinsic needs of the prospect. Once you have what is important to the prospect, you can make the match.

If for whatever reason you are not able to evaluate your competition, what is MOST IMPORTANT is point “d” above.

Yogi Berra said it best, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Make an appointment with this prospect and perform a post mortem on the sale. Ask the decision maker why you didn’t get the sale. Don’t become argumentative, but this will give you one more tool to turn the sale around. And if you’ve truly lost this one, it’s a lesson well learned for tomorrow.

As always, I wish you a tremendous personal and business week. Call me if I can be of assistance.

Regards,

George F. Mancuso

George F. Mancuso, CPC
“WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT GMAN”

Any Thoughts On Motivating My Employees?

Q: Would you kind enough to give me some tips on motivating my employees? I feel like most of my employees are just marking time and the next thing I know we are in a time crunch for a project. We are a service organization and this problem includes office, customer service and sales people.
Paul B, Columbia, MO

A: Without visiting your business and observing your people it is a bit deceiving what is transpiring. However on the surface is sound like they have a lack of focus which will destroy any chance you have at developing good time management skills for all.

A friend of mine shared an idea with me last week and in part, allow me to share some of that with you as well. At your next company meeting or through a companywide Email offer your employees this scenario:

Imagine arriving at work you find that your workstation office is covered with $100 bills from the floor to the ceiling. As you find your way to your desk, on the loud speaker you hear the President announce, “Between the Hours of 9:00 and 11:30 AM and 1:30 and 4:00 PM today, you can keep all of the $100 bills that you can gather up – no strings attached!”

Ask yourself the following questions:

Would you REALLY until 9:00 AM to start?

Would you REALLY go to lunch?

Would you REALLY take personal phone calls?

Would you REALLY send or read personal Emails?

Would you REALLY go onto social Internet sites?

Would you even go to the bathroom?

You probably answered “NO” to most of those questions, because you would be extremely focused on gathering and keeping as many $100 bills as you could.

THE REALITY:

Those $100 bills are in your office right now. In order to grow YOU as an employee, or YOU as a company, harvesting those $100 bills is critically important to OUR success!

You have many people on both sides of the sales process and our co-workers can also be a distraction. And don’t forget that we often distract ourselves when our attention switches from work to family, friends, vacations etc.

Often family members and friends don’t realize they are taking money out of your pocket when they distract you during business hours. It is important to limit those distractions by just letting people know they should call you before work, during lunch or at the end of the day.

They take money from YOUR pocket because if your company doesn’t grow, you just might not get a paycheck next Friday. If you limit the distractions, you will earn more money and you will have more time.

There are several ways to help people manage time better, become more organized, learn to grow themselves while growing their organizations. If you need more information, just contact me, George@GmanSearch.com.

Find a way to make a difference this week in your life and of the people around you.

Regards,

George F. Mancuso

George F. Mancuso, CPC