How to Develop From Being a Good Employee - To a Great Employee - in 4 Easy Steps

‘The person who gets ahead is the one who does more than is necessary and keeps on doing it.’
- Richard Denny


‘Excuse me sir,’ the voice at the other end of the phone said, ‘I have just been relieved of my position.’

‘What?’ said I from the other end, ‘When? How? What happened?’

This was a conversation between me and one of my mentees, Jenny. Not her real name though. The timing of Jenny’s sack though caught me unawares it was however not surprising. Her imminent sack was always waiting to happen. I have always warned her about this. It was a matter of when and not if. In point of fact I had been encouraging her to look elsewhere for work.

You see Jenny was a Senior HR professional in her organization and had been having a running battle with her direct boss who was the Head of HR. So many times she had called me up to complain about one thing or the other. The picture she painted for me was a boss who was incompetent and consequently jealous of a subordinate who was a star (and was always questioning his actions especially the ones that she feel runs counter to her professional beliefs and ethics).

My advice to her had always been to get out of the organization fast before being sacked. For a start, her boss had the ears of the powers that be in the organization and whatsoever he told them they would listen to and do. Therefore considering the cat and mouse relationship, her sack was inevitable. So immediately the company started experiencing a downturn in its economic wellbeing and they had to down size, her name was included.

There are two morals to be learned from this story.

The first is pride and its converse humility. If you want to accomplish great things and acquire uncommon skills in your workplace, some amount of pride is necessary to push yourself forward. However, false pride can be a major stumbling block in achieving much in any organization.

Jenny was an accomplished HR professional. If I have to rank her against her peers, she would be in the top 20%. She has earned her right to offer advice and recommendations to her superior officer, however she should have been more diplomatic about it. The pride she had in her work however made her question certain wrong decisions her boss made. She therefore allowed false pride to halt her progress.

This is very common among most workers. When workers believe that their work is beyond reproach they allow this to damage their careers thinking they can no longer benefit from the knowledge of others who are more experienced and better. Therefore no matter how incompetent you might think your superior is, there are still some things you can learn from him or her. That is why he has gone that far in his career. Jenny therefore needs to imbibe humility. That is the confidence that follows the accomplishments in any workplace and not the pride that preceded her fall.

Now to the second moral in this story which is to avoidance of false pride which can prevent you from transcending from a good worker to a great worker. Great workers though confident in their work are devoid of false pride. They are the ones that are always coveted in most organizations. They drive organizations from ordinary to great organizations. Great workers make the problems that usually hamper and plague businesses at every stage of their development become easy to solve and consequently disappear. They make all the difference.

So what does Jenny need to do about her future as a HR professional? What does she (or any worker for that matter) need to do to propel herself from the good worker that she presently is to a great worker?

Here they are in these four easy steps:

1. Doing the work you love (What?): To be a great worker, you first need to love the work you are doing in any organization. How do you go about achieving this? By choosing a career or work that allows you to achieve your primary aim or purpose in life. You purpose in life is the reason why you are in existence. For example if your primary aim is to care for people, then your work should be in the area of medicine or social work. Any work that is not related to caring for people can never hold your attention. Jenny is doing the work she loved, no doubt about that.

2. Working where you love (Where?): A follow up to the first step is to carefully choose your place of work. The organization where you work must be one that will allow you achieve your primary aim in life not one that will hamper you. An organization whose mission and purpose differs from yours will never allow you to thrive. You will always be enthusiastic to work in an organization where work and working is made enjoyable. Here Jenny got it wrong. She was not working where she loved.

3. Working when you love (When?): There is an unwritten rule in most organizations that if you want to get ahead you must resume earlier and close later than the normal resumption and closing hours. At least one hour before resumption and after closing. When you put in more hours the better. Doing this shows that you care for your organization.

When you love what you are doing and where you are working, putting in extra hours will never be a problem. In point of fact whatever time you are called upon to work, you will never complain and will always love it.
4. Working with whom and those you love (Who?): This is about the most important step in the consideration of transcending from a good to a great worker. If you carefully choose the people you work with, you will be able to master the what, where and when of your working life. You can choose to do what you love, work where you love and even when you love, but working with people you do not love can make work and working hell for you. Here Jenny got it absolutely wrong. She was working with those she distrusted and was uncomfortable working with.

Great employees are the ones who make organizations successful. They are the ones who are tenacious and self motivated. They set the direction of any business.

Jenny was a good worker. A damn good one for that matter. However, she never allowed herself to become a great worker which she was destined to be. Reason being that she allowed false pride ruin her career. This she could have avoided if she had followed the four easy steps listed above. So sad.

Thank you for sharing your time with me in reading this post. Trust you enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

The Investment Mistake That Taught Me More About Investment Than Any Book Ever Did

‘Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or for purposes for which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keeping.’
- George Samuel Clason – ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’


There is this common adage that says knowledge is power. I have however come to realize that it is not knowledge that is power. Instead it is applied knowledge that is power. This therefore is the subject of my discussion in this post.

Back in the year 2000 when I first read the book, ‘The Richest Man in Babylon’ by George Samuel Clason, I was so overjoyed that I made it a duty to share the practical knowledge encapsulated therein with all my friends and acquaintances. I felt then that this was a book that provided all the practical answers that could fast track your journey financially from where you are to where you want to be. However this could only happen if the principles are diligently applied.

Come year 2007, I retired from paid employment and was paid a handsome gratuity running into millions of naira. Though this money was payment for my effort of almost two decades of work, I soon realized that easy money does not stick around. Think of those who have won lotteries and how have not been able to much save out of their winnings. You see the wealth that comes quickly often goes the same way if not properly handled.

The year 2006 to early 2008 was the time when investment in stocks was at its prime. Thinking I had acquired enough knowledge in stock trading I invested heavily in it. In point of fact the bulk of my gratuity went into the stock market. Then came the eventual recession and economic melt-down of the years mid 2008 to 2010 and the bubble busted. I lost my entire gratuity to unrestrained spending and unwise investment in stocks. Rather than diversifying my investment, I only concentrated on stock trading. Why? It was because I wanted quick and immediate profit. It was therefore my greed that brought about my financial ruin.

You see the worst thing that can happen to you in stock trading is to initially win big which I did. It made me think I was smart and knowledgeable in stock trading. It was the greed to win more that propelled me to invest more which consequently wiped off my gratuity and my other savings. My experience thereafter is a story for another day.

What therefore is the moral in this story?

The moral is that you should never invest in any business which you are not familiar!

Apart from this, I also learned from this my investment mistake several other lessons out of which I will like to pick out ten which will benefit you my readers today.

1. Your past failure or mistake has no bearing on your future.
2. Be cautious with the advice of financial experts when it comes to the issue of investments. Most of them are not competent. They are only interested in the gain they stand to gain.
3. Success in investments comes from intelligent investment judgments. That is the intelligent choices and decisions you make in your investments.
4. Intelligent judgments/decisions come from experience. Your experience on the other hand comes from bad choices/judgments made in the past and what you have learned from them.
5. There is benefit in the ‘Principle of Accelerated Failure’ (Mark Morgan Ford coined this in his book, ‘The Pledge’). That is, the faster you learn from critical mistakes, the sooner you will acquire the knowledge and wisdom to succeed. Put in another words, never fear to make mistakes or fail. You should seek it out and learn from it.
6. Hard work though necessary does not necessarily bring about prosperity.
7. Money is a means of exchange and wealth is a state of mind. Wealth grows whenever men exert energy in the pursuit of a worthy goal.
8. You invest not for building assets but to generate income for the rest of your life.
9. To become a successful investor you have to seek and learn the secrets. You must learn how to invest.
10. There are investment principles/laws which if applied would generate for you income for the rest of your life.

In spite of my mistake in this investment, have I really stopped investing in stocks? My answer is a resounding no! Rather I have made efforts to learn from this mistake. My judgments and decision making in investment have also become better and wiser. This has therefore brought me gains instead of pains.

In addition, I also learned something which is priceless. I have learned the benefit in portfolio diversification. This then led to do a little bit of research on the topic and thus far, Tony Robbins seems to have provided the best insight.

Portfolio diversification is what Tony Robbins referred to as Asset Allocation. In his video seminar titled, ‘Financial Freedom: 3 Steps to Creating the Wealth You Deserve’ Tony shared some practical financial and investment secrets which I have been putting into good use and have served me well till today. I belief if applied it will benefit you my readers and immensely too.

You see, the secret to good investment is proper asset allocation. This I did not do when I collected my gratuity. I only concentrated on stock trading which is only one form of income generating medium. Asset allocation is the single most important investment decision in your life. It is the only thing that can protect you against loss of your investments.

Asset allocation means creating three buckets into which your investments would go. So whatever amount of money you intend to invest goes into all three and not one. They are:

 Security bucket: In this bucket you have the investment that gives you guaranteed rate of returns. It is the most secured against loss. Therefore your first investment has to go into this bucket. Examples of such investments are: bonds, insurance and of course your home.
 Growth bucket: This kind of investment guarantees you greater returns on investment if successful. If you however screw up in your growth investment, you get zero returns. Examples are stocks and real estate. The two main strategies in this bucket of investment are the buy and hold strategy and the trading strategy (which is the strategy of the momentum players).
 Dream bucket: These are the investment in your dreams. Examples are: travels, owning properties in choice part of the world, owning a boat, owning choice cars etc.


How do you then decide how to fill up your investment buckets? This will depend on your stage in life. The older you are, the more you will need to fill up your security bucket first. As an elderly person (in your 40s, 50s or 6os), you need to fill up your security bucket first since you have less time to make up for your investment mistakes. This practically is how I allocate my investments today and I have been the better for it.

However what do we have today when people want to invest? Most people tend to fill their dream buckets first. They want the best cars. They want to live in choice areas. They like to indulge in living big. You see you can only live big or indulge in your dreams when you are financially free and independent. That is when you consistently make money from your investments for the rest of your life and you never have to work again. Next they fill their growth bucket and finally the security bucket. This is wrong.

I want to thank Tony for providing me this insight.

I want to thank you too for taking your time to read this post. I hope you have benefited from reading it as much as I have enjoyed crafting it.

Mentoring: Using the Simple Art of Modeling to Create a Better You

‘He who walks with the lame learns how to walk.’
- Latin Proverb

Let me share with you a story I came across in a book I cherish so much. The story goes thus.
Many years ago a promising Greek artist named Timanthes was under the tutelage of a well known instructor who was serving both as his coach and mentor. After several years of tutelage, the young painter created an exquisite portrait. The young painter was so enamored with what he had created that he sat day and night gazing at his work. One morning however, he was horrified to discover that his teacher had deliberately ruined his painting. Angry and in tears, Timanthes ran to his mentor and asked why he had destroyed his cherished possession. The wise man replied him by saying ‘I did it for your own good. That painting was retarding your progress. It was an excellent piece of art no doubt, but it was not perfect. Start all over again and see if you can do better.’ The young artist took his mentor’s advice and produced a masterpiece called “Sacrifice of Iphigenia”, regarded by some as one of the finest paintings of antiquity.

What is the moral of this short story? It is that as an individual you do not know it all. No matter what you might have achieved in your field of endeavor, there are still some people better and more successful than you. To achieve more and become more successful therefore, you need to follow in the footsteps of someone who has done it before and will act as your guide. You need someone who will direct your steps when you are straying. Someone who has been there before and will help you avoid certain pitfalls that might befall you in your journey through life. This simply is what mentoring is all about.

Stretching this a bit further, if for example you want to learn how to climb the mountain, you need to watch and listen to someone who has done it before.

What therefore is mentoring?

The word mentor was derived from the character “Mentor” in Homer’s epic tale ‘The Odyssey’. Mentor was a trusted friend to Odysseus, the king of Ithaca in the tale. He was to later serve as a counsel and friend to Odysseus’ son Telemachus after the father’s death.

Mentoring however refers to ‘a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.’ It therefore relates to a process for sharing knowledge relevant to work, career or professional development. By this is meant supporting and encouraging people to manage their own learning in order to maximize their potentials towards the accomplishment of their career goals. The relationship is therefore non-reporting and does not replace any of the organizational structure. Mentoring is supportive and the mentor guides the mentee through modeling of positive behaviors. Furthermore, the real impact of mentoring is made through consistent and ongoing relationship building.

Why mentoring?

Mentoring serves several benefits. It benefits the individual both as an employee or self employed. It benefits the organization where an employee serves. It also benefits the mentor and of course the profession of the mentee.

In the Workplace

1. You are provided with someone with greater knowledge and experience to turn to for advice.
2. You feel less isolated at work.
3. You are guided through problem solving.
4. You are provided with tips on career growth.
5. Employers enjoys greater productivity from the employees as a result of fewer mistakes
6. Employees enjoys greater job satisfaction
7. There is less employee turnover as a result of greater loyalty to the company.
8. Availability of mentorship program attracts new employees

Benefits to the Mentor

1. The opportunity to teach and advice mentees increases the confidence and job satisfaction of the mentor.
2. Listening to concerns of mentees help develop better understanding of employee issues and enhances stronger communication skills.
3. If the mentor is a supervisor or manager, it improves supervisory and management skills.
4. Through maintenance of professional connections it enhances reputation/connection.

Benefits to the Profession

1. Mentored employees value collaboration and sharing of information which makes the organization stronger.
2. In the workplace, it helps employees become more self directed and develop stronger communication and problem solving skills which allows business to become more creative on focused growth.
3. Mentored employees are apt to be involved in professional organizations which further their career and profession itself.
How do you go about mentoring?

The main purpose of mentoring is to create a better you! If this has been identified, how do you go about doing so? How do you find that mentor who will guide and support you all the way? Even when you have found that mentor, how do you build that enduring relationship that will benefit you?
Listed below are some action steps you could take to achieve your aim.

1. You must first understand the role of a mentor: Better still you must understand the kind of mentor that you desire. Is it a career/professional mentor or a spiritual mentor or a business mentor or academic mentor or a financial mentor? A good mentor must:
 Be able to access your strengths and weaknesses
 Help you understand the structure and organization of any topic
 Introduce to you new perspectives and correct any wrong thinking you might possess
 Boost your ability to make decisions
 Help you familiarize yourself with the various tricks of your profession
 Introduce you to important resources and useful references
 Help in developing and creating a better and effective you
2. Think about the best ways of establishing communication and building a relationship with the mentor: Basically this is all about how to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with the mentor. This requires certain action steps.
 You must decide what specific role you want the mentor to provide, what you specifically want to learn from him or her. Further, you must decide what you are looking for from him and how often you will like to meet with him.
 You must make a list of potential mentors according to your own personal criteria and desires for the relationship you are trying to build. Your mentor however must be someone who is well rounded and not one you admire in certain aspects alone.
 You must think about what to say to convince him to be your mentor
 Start approaching potential mentors on your list until you meet the one who will agree to be your mentor.
 Make plans on where to meet.
3. Endeavor to keep the mentorship healthy: The relationship with your mentor has to be nurtured to make it enduring. To do this, you must:
 Keep a schedule and keep to it.
 Make the relationship with your mentor mutually beneficial
 Show appreciation as at and when due
 Keep the relationship strictly professional. Remove all forms of emotion from it.
4. Be accountable to yourself and others: That is you should avoid being selfish. You must share your hard work as well as your progress with others. Just like your mentor has done by sharing his.

Mentoring is therefore about modeling yourself after someone you have identified as worthy of emulation, a role model of some sort. Someone who is ready to support and guide you to become the kind of person you want to be. A mentor must be prepared to help you create a better you. Not a person who will be jealous of your achievements. The guidance and support must however be voluntary. It must not be pecuniary.

I hope you have benefited from reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I thank you for sharing your time with me. I really do.

Tips on Dressing to Beat the Competition During Your Next Interview

Dr Frank Bernieri, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Oregun State University in the United States once enthused that “Within the first ten seconds of meeting your interviewer, the person had decided whether you are fit for the job or not. Those who came across as being polished and appropriately dressed are deemed to be more likely to be fit for hire than those who put in less effort to do so.” What this means is that you need to make a conscious and deliberate effort to make your appearance not only appealing but seductive for your next job interview in order to create a lasting impression and enhance your employ-ability. Your dressing therefore plays a critical role in your success during the interview. If your appearance is appropriate and attractive enough it will set you apart from the crowd of other job seekers. What you wear will afford a prospective employer the clue to determine whether you can fit into their corporate culture or not.

What then repulses the hiring manager the most about a job seeker during any interview session? Why would a prospective employer suddenly develop a dislike for a prospective employee in the course of a job chat? Of course it is creating a sloppy first impression during the job chat. Your appearance is what communicates the first impression to the recruiter during the interview session. It can make or mar your interview. You see, immediate judgment is formed about you based on the way you dress, your warm smile, your hair style or hair cut and of course your conduct. Being sloppy about all these during a job chat is a potential danger to a successful interview. Your contact with the interviewer therefore contains some element of seduction. A neat and appropriate dressing therefore goes hand in hand with this.

Stretching this a bit further how do you then create a good and lasting first impression with your dressing during an interview? From my years of experience as a recruiter, the following tips although may or may not land you the job but will surely enhance your success during the interview.

1. Conducting proper and accurate research on the organization’s dress code: Do your homework on the dressing code of the organization putting the job on offer and consequently conducting the interview. Check the dress code of the organization on Google. You can even visit their office during office hours and check out the outfits of the better dressed employees. Endeavor to dress that way to convince the hiring manager that you can fit into their corporate culture.
2. Abiding by the interview attire golden rule: We interviewers expect a prospective job seeker to appear for a job chat in an outfit typical of the profession she is being interviewed. You will be credited for being appropriately dressed, however you will lose marks if not properly dressed for the interview. That is why you need to do your home work on the dressing code of a prospective employer well.
3. Choosing your outfit conservatively: When preparing for your next interview and in the course of taking decision on your dressing, endeavor to choose an outfit customary to your industry or sector and in particular your prospective organization. Younger job seekers often make the mistake of thinking that college dressing or night club dressing is appropriate for interview. This is far from the truth. Your image should portray professionalism. For conservation businesses (like banking or law) a man should wear suits (color black or navy blue with nice socks, white shirt or blue with matching tie, belt and pair of shoes while a woman on the other hand should wear a nice skirt or pant suit with pantyhose and closed shoes. Those in the internet and public relations industry or other less formal sector, could dress a little trendier by wearing button down shirts, a pair of slacks and nice pair of shoes. If however the interview is less formal, like in the software development sector where they are not particular about suits, the candidate should try and wear something nicer than what the others in the company are wearing.
4. Paying attention to the other accessories you wear: You should not pay attention to the dress you wear to an interview alone and forget the other accessories. They all go hand in hand. Endeavor to match the shoe you wear with the color of the belt. Make sure your shoes are polished well and fit.
5. Fragrance: Avoid using your favorite cologne, aftershave or perfume as part of your dressing when going for your next interview. Some interviewers are sensitive to smell and may not like the scent as much as you do. Such smell could therefore offend them and consequently count against you during the interview.
6. Avoid showing too much of your skin: The more of your skin you show during the interview, the more your credibility wanes. A common complaint by prospective employers is that most women wear clothes that are too revealing to work. You will therefore not want to prove them right. Do you?
7. Your jewelry, piercings and tattoos: The less the better. Overdoing it may count against you.

Dressing indicates commitment and seriousness on the part of you the job seeker and consequently endears you to the hiring manager. Further it indicates that you the prospective employee will fit into the culture of the organization. In the words of Samuel Johnson “Fine dressing are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect.” Dressing appropriately for your next interview will therefore open all doors for you including that of the hiring manager. You see good dressing may not make the man, but it has certainly gotten many a good job.
Did you enjoy reading this article as much as I did in writing it? Your comments will be appreciated.
Thanks for sharing your time with me.

Tips on How to Prepare for a Job Interview

Preparing for a job chat has always been found to enhance performance during interview sessions. It increases your confidence as a candidate during the assessment process thereby improving your chances of success. Further, with adequate preparation possibilities and opportunities that otherwise would have been unavailable are opened up. Problematic questions which could have been asked during interview sessions would have been practiced beforehand and probable answers prepared for them. With adequate preparation and practice the interview skills and abilities required during the assessment process would have been learnt and exhibited during the session. This write up is therefore prepared to offer tips on making adequate preparation to make a success of your next interview.

Consider this scenario. Daniel and Joshua were both shortlisted for the vacant position of Marketing Manager. Joahua spent over one hundred hours preparing for the interview, holding mock interviews, practicing probable questions and answers, working on his communication skills and others, researching into the company putting the job on offer etc. Daniel on the other hand did none of that. Instead he relied on his intelligence and talent to take him through. The most he spent on preparation was the few hours he took to arrange the things he thought he would need to take to the interview session. From the foregoing, who out of the two will perform better during the assessment session? Joshua will perform better of course. Practice they say makes one perfect. With adequate preparation and coupled with hours of practice, several opportunities and possibilities that will enhance chances of success during the interview session will open up. Intelligence and talent can only take you to a certain level. Maybe get you past the first level of the interview session. It is adequate preparation that will take you up the ladder of success in any endeavor and during the assessment session will help you outshine your competition.

As a job searcher desirous of performing well during any job chat and consequently enhancing your employability, you need to take certain positive actions. What are these actions?
1. Conducting research on the company putting job on offer: First among such actions is learning about the company advertising a job. Go online and learn as much as you can about the company. You need to learn about what industry it is in. What it produces or the service it renders. The size of the company in terms of sales and turnover and in terms of employees. What the company says about its products and services etc. Further, you need to learn about what other people are saying about the company. All these will put you in good stead during the chat.
2. Familiarizing yourself with the job on offer: You need to learn about the job being put on offer. Learn about what skills and attributes are required and try to match them with ones you possess. To do this, you need to conduct a sort of personal assessment and audit to identify your good points and attributes and match same with those required for the job. You should note one or two examples for each personal attributes that best illustrate your suitability for the job on offer. Familiarize yourself with these and put them to use in the event of being asked questions on your suitability for the job on offer.
3. Preparation on how to relate stories about your achievements and accomplishments: Another positive action is the ability to tell stories related to your work experience and accomplishments during the interview session. You should be able to draw on such experiences that demonstrate your skills and abilities. You should therefore practice telling your story perfectly well. Since the interview session is a marketing activity designed to sell a product which is you the candidate, you should make the most of it. You should be able to convince the interviewer that you are the ideal candidate and the benefits they stand to gain by your employment. The story telling practice is therefore an essential tool to assist you in creating a natural flow to your stories so that the interviewer can focus on your potential benefit to the company putting a job on offer.
4. Choosing the right outfit to wear to the interview session: Endeavor to choose an outfit that will agree perfectly with your interview session. Most times formal dressing is required. In point of fact interviewers allot some marks for dressing. You should therefore endeavor to choose your outfit carefully. Choose such outfit that will not be too neither loud nor shabby looking. Make sure you choose one that will show that you are a perfect candidate for the position on offer.
5. Practice frequently asked interview questions: As a job seeker, one is not endowed with the skill of knowing all the questions that are likely to be asked during a job chat. Even if you know some you cannot possibly know all. It therefore becomes pertinent to prepare beforehand with likely and frequently asked interview questions. There are several websites on the internet with such questions. Practicing them beforehand and learning the probable answers to them increases your chances of answering them well during actual interview sessions.
6. Practice proper communication of ideas: Interview is all about marketing of a product which is you the candidate. In marketing therefore communication plays a major role. If you know so much about your product and you are not able to convince the customer to buy it from you, what is the essence of selling? That is where proper communication comes in. With proper communication of the benefits and values of the product, selling it to the customer becomes easier. Same goes for the interview session. With proper communication of your skills, attributes and accomplishment to the interviewers convincing them that you are the perfect candidate for the job becomes easier. This will consequently enhance your employ-ability. Therefore practicing proper communication of ideas cannot be over emphasized.
7. Use “STAR” model (Situation or task, action and result) when answering interview questions: Another vital method of preparing for a job chat is by practicing beforehand how to use the STAR model in answering questions during interview session. The intention is to provide structure and focus to your answers. For example if asked during interview a particular situation when you have displayed a certain interview skill, the interviewer is looking for how you will respond via a specific example. Using the STAR model therefore, you will break your answer into: the description of the task, the action you took and the final measurable result. This enables the interviewer to visualize your behavioral response to specific events and consequently gain the best impression about your future performance. You should therefore endeavor to prepare one or two example for each of the attributes you must have listed in your resume.
8. Let others help you out: While preparing for your interview session, endeavor to seek the opinion of a second person regarding your performance. You do not know it all. Having probably a friend or a colleague to help watch how you perform in a mock interview session will assist in identifying lapses and sour points that might otherwise not have been discovered.

From the foregoing therefore, the idea of adequate preparation before a job chat cannot be over emphasized. This is because preparation increases your value as a job seeker and consequently your success during the interview. With adequate preparation your employ-ability as a job hunter is further enhanced. My experience as a recruiter has shown that a candidate who prepares well for a job interview will always outshine one who does not. Individual talent and brilliance is essential but it can only take the job seeker to a level. Only adequate preparation can take you all the way.

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

The Truth about Reliability in Resume Writing

‘When you are honest and ethical and live with integrity, your rewards are guaranteed’.
- Zig Zigler.

In my over two decades as a human relations professional, I have had the privilege of coming across quite a number of so called ‘stars’ ruining their careers and consequently their lives as a result of being economical with the truth when crafting their resumes.

The other day, one of my mentees called me up to seek my opinion over an issue that had been boggling his mind. You see, he had been recommended for a top management role in a multinational company. He was then asked to submit a copy of his most recent resume. Being the one that helped him craft the resume he then wanted to seek my opinion on some issues in the resume which he claimed did not quite add up. He therefore wanted to seek my opinion on whether to re-craft the resume and straighten up the facts bearing in mind that he had at one time had his hands burnt and forced to resign over a similar matter or leave it the way it is.

Without mincing words, my straight answer was that he should re-craft his resume and present the facts the way they are. I then went on to relate the story of a certain John (not real name) a certain medical doctor who got hired as the resident doctor in the clinic of a textile company. During recruitment, the resume was properly polished and so professionally written that he was the first to be shortlisted for interview. Fortunately, he was able to match his claims with his performance during the interview and he was eventually employed. However, unknown to the employers, he was not a qualified medical doctor as claimed in the resume. He was a fake. It took the employment of a new Human Resource Manager to discover the truth. The new HRM while going through his file one day discovered some anomalies in his resume. He found out that some things did not match and therefore invited him for a chat to clear things up. It was then found out that he never qualified as a medical doctor. He lost his job and a battered image in tow. All these could have been avoided if he had presented a reliable resume, but he did not. He wanted to cut corners.

Whether you want it or not, prospective employers often do background checks after employment to determine the veracity of the claims of candidates in their resumes and during interviews. You see, your CV is a mirror of your personality to a prospective employer. It shows the hirer your real personality. Presenting a reliable resume to a prospective employer therefore presents the picture of a reliable prospective employee. The hirer will visualize a candidate that can be relied upon and can add real value to their organization if given the opportunity to serve and that says a lot about the individual. Further, presenting a reliable CV to a recruiter will present the picture of a candidate with integrity. It will present the picture of an honest candidate, dependable and a person of impeccable character.

If this is so, why then do most job seekers pack lies in their resumes? The answer is to achieve the objective of being shortlisted for an interview of course. By claiming to possess skills, attributes and achievements they do not actually possess in their CVs, they stand better chance of being shortlisted. However, the lie will not endure forever. The truth will come out anyway. If not discovered during scrutiny by recruiters, it would during actual interview. You see some things do not match so we experience recruiters often look for such inaccuracies in resumes. Sometimes when those lying in their CVs get employed, they usually do not match their claims with their performance. Also, the truth might be found out when employers contact the places of work or schools attended to verify their claims. So their untruths are eventually found out. Research has shown that candidates often lie about employment dates, job titles, gaps between employments and qualifications. In point of fact 86% of interviewers think that resumes and application forms are not wholly truthful.

Why Present a Reliable Resume?

1. A CV with a lie is an embarrassment or a dismissal waiting to happen in the future: 86% of recruiters have the belief that job seekers often lie in their CVs and do not present the facts as they truly are. Therefore when scrutinizing resumes, they always take the pain to separate the fake resumes from the reliable ones. An experienced recruiter cannot be fooled. It is easy to fool someone without experience but not so with an experienced HR practitioner who knows his onion in recruitment. We recruiters often look for that part of the CV that does not match. We most times look for inaccuracies, inconsistencies, distortions and omissions. Sometimes this is done during interview session if the candidate is successful in passing through the short listing. Therefore whatever doubts we might have we always try to clear up during the interview session. Chances are that if you are able to scale the short listing with a resume filled with half truths or untruths, you will have to clear these up during the interview session.
2. Truth will eventually be known: Lying in your CV is a very daft thing to do because the truth will eventually come out if not during interview sessions it could be after references might have been sent out to confirm the veracity of the claims in the CV. It is therefore sensible to present facts as they truly should be. After all the worst that could happen is not to be considered for short listing in one placement and that does not mean you will not be considered again. Research has shown that about 85% of employers seek references from at least a previous employer. Therefore if you have made any false claim in your CV about your achievements in your past employment, chances are that the lie might be found out.
3. Integrity and reputation are more important than qualification: Lying in your resume about qualification is a risky strategy therefore it is better to avoid the temptation. It is better to be proud of who you are and what you have. Positive emphasis and strong presentation about self is good but falsehoods are not.

From the foregoing therefore it is not good to present inaccuracies or distortions in your CV. Rather than cover your CV with deceits it is better to show recruiters what you have learned from your mistakes. That way you will gain the respect of your prospective employer as you will come out as one who can learn from mistakes and develop from it. These are the kind of candidates that can add value to organizations and not the deceitful ones. Reliability adds value to your personality and further enhances your chances of employability. This is because the recruiter scrutinizing your CV will see you as one capable of adding value to his organization. If you therefore want to have an edge over most other applicants, tell the truth. This is because integrity is considered a vital factor among all good quality employers.

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

How to Cure Your Goal Setting DIS-EASE

In 1963 at Yale University in the United States, only 3% of the musical students were said to have set goals and plan on how to accomplish them. 97% of the students did not. By the year 1973 (10 years later), those 3% have accomplished 97% of their set goals.
Why did the 97% that refused to set goals do so? You see in life we have an incredible amount of choices. Therefore we may decide to set goals or not.

Zig Zigler gave some reasons which I believe may be relevant:
1. Fear factor: Fear is ‘False Evidence Appearing Real’. These students have been taught to belief negatively that goal setting could not work for them.
2. They have a processed image/identity: We act in accordance with the image /identity of ourselves that we have created in our head.
3. They have never really been sold on the absolute necessity of setting goals. They do not know that goal setting could work for them.
4. They do not know how to set and reach their goals.

Elaborating a bit more on this, a study was conducted with a group of 100 men who start evenly at the age of 25 years. Imagine what will happen to them all by the time they are 65 years. For a start they will all believed that they would be successful. However by the time they were 65 years, only one was rich. Four out of the 65 were financially free. 41 were still working while 54 out of the 100 were broke. So much for all of the 100 men thinking they could all be successful.

So what is success?

Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. The only person who is therefore successful is that who is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. That is one who pursues something worthy and realizes it. Success is a woman who wants to be a good mother and makes a good job of it. Success is a man who wants to become a software developer like Bill Gates and makes a damn good job of it. Success is a thing you do deliberately and accomplish it.
If this is therefore so, have you ever wondered why some people dream of doing something but never achieve it? Or wondered why some people dream of doing things and successfully accomplish them over and over again. The reason is goals!!! People with goals know where they are going. They know their destination.

What are goals?

Goals are dreams we are willing to take action on and it must have a deadline. Goals have a beginning and an end. We all have dreams. We dream of buying cars or building houses for example. Supposing you decide to buy your car by December 2015 or pack into your house by May 2016, the dream has crossed the threshold of dreams and crossed into that of goals. This is because a deadline has been attached to the completion. Without a dream you cannot have a goal. Without a goal you cannot take positive action on your dream. Without taking positive action on your dream, nothing can bring you closer to your dream. We therefore set goals to accomplish our dreams.


BE --------- DO---------HAVE

Stretching the discussion on goals setting a bit further, after several decades of knowledge acquisition and experience I have come to the realization that the strategy I am about to discourse on is the most appropriate in curing goal setting disease yet. The three words above are at the heart of this strategy.

Goals are the ‘have’ part of this strategy. Your goals include such things like having a lean and slim body, having a great relationship, having a latest car, having a nice mansion or having a million dollars.

Once you figure out what you want to have (your goal), you begin listing what you have ‘to do’ to have it. This is basically the reason why people have ‘to do lists’. Consequently you set your goal and then start ‘doing’. For example many people believe that if you buy stocks, bonds, real estate or mutual funds (the way the rich do) this will make you rich and wealthy. However, doing what the professional investor do does not guarantee financial success. By doing this, you are only focusing on what investors have to do to get rich and that is erroneous. Rather, you should first focus on ‘being’ before doing. To become rich therefore, you have to first acquire the mentality, beliefs, attitude and mindset of the rich about money. Without this you will only be doing to have which won’t get you far. Rather than working hard to grow rich, you should think hard to grow rich. Rather than working hard to pay bills therefore you should work hard to acquire assets.

The same could be applied to the person who wants to have a perfect body. Most focus on doing what those having perfect bodied do, which is dieting and exercising. However this does not last long before they revert to what they have always been doing (indiscipline in their diets and fitness).

Think of setting standards and you will think of goal setting. Standards serve as our measuring rod for our progress in life. If you want any lasting change and progress in life you must set standards and you must set goals. With your progress comes your happiness. Human beings are happiest when making progress. Progress however is not automatic. You have got to work on it by setting standards, by setting goals.

To cure yourself of your goal setting disease, you must first acquire the mindset, attitude and beliefs of who you want to ‘be’ which will increase your chances of doing what you have to ‘do’ which will ultimately increase your chances of having what you want to ‘have’ (your goals).

If you want to survive and prosper in this rat race called life, you must emulate the habit of setting goals. Educate yourself about it. Make genuine efforts to practice it and seize the opportunities that come along with the discipline of goal setting to avoid the pain of regret.

Thank you for sharing your time with me.

To Thy Own Self Be True

Our mind is regarded as the one thing that can make or destroy us. Every great achievement therefore commence from the mind. Likewise every single thing that is bad commence from the mind as well. It is for this reason that procrastination (the harbinger of every delay in success in any human endeavor) commence from the mind as well. Take weight problem for example. It starts with the lies we tell to our minds and accepted by our bodies.
The article posted below is written by someone I greatly admire and respect. It deals with the issue of the lies we tell to ourselves which have prevented us from reaching our potentials and moving ahead in our lives.
I hope you enjoy reading it and learn from it as much as I did.

- Adekunle Agbaje
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The Biggest Lie You Tell Yourself
By Craig Ballantyne

Mike Whitfield weighed 300 pounds at just twenty-eight years old. Each night, after arriving home from his corporate job and while deciding what he was going to have for dinner, he'd eat a large bag of potato chips. After sitting on the couch and playing video games, he'd then make a large frozen pizza and finish it off with a big bowl of ice cream.

Mike's weight ballooned until one day he couldn't see his shoes. All of this happened because he kept lying to himself.

"I told myself, 'I can't stop eating chips at night. That's how I relieve stress after work.' And I also said 'I can't exercise because I'm too big and out of shape."

But then one day he just stopped thinking that way - and stopped lying to himself - and decided that he could do those things.

"I overcame these thoughts by going to the gym after work instead of hitting the couch and eating potato chips. I also signed up for a 10k run months before the event so that I had a deadline and pressure to train for it," he explained.

Within days he had stopped eating junk food before dinner. By the end of the month he'd lost sixteen pounds. In 6 months, he'd shed 75 pounds of fat. Two years later, he was down 105 pounds, and he's kept that off for over nine years. At the same time he's become a rising star in the fitness industry, earning the first ever Turbulence Trainer of the Year award at my annual fitness summit.

Mike's changed his life and it all started by telling himself the truth.

He went from telling himself the "I can't do that" lie to being able to handle the "Yes, I will do this" truth.

How many times have you told yourself a similar lie? Not just when it comes to junk food, but when it comes to changing any of your bad habits in life.

How many times have you said, "Oh, I can't go without checking my email until 9am"?

How many times have you said, "I just couldn't survive without my morning coffee and donut"?

How many nights have you said, "There's just no way I can get to bed before 10pm"?

The biggest lie we tell ourselves is "I can't". I can't do this or I can't do that.

Sometimes it's not your fault. Often other people initiate the lie, telling us that we're not good at something, and then we reinforce it year after year.

For example, in his excellent book, "What Got You Here Won't Get You There", Marshall Goldsmith recounts the story of how he was once told that he wasn't mechanically adept. He reinforced this belief on himself for decades without even trying to test whether this axiom was true or false. Finally, one day, he put himself through a course and found that he was in fact quite good at mechanics. But he had wasted years telling himself the lie that "He can't".

Like you and Marshall, I've told myself similar lies for years.

It used to be that "I can't get up before 6am" and "I couldn't exercise before lunch". Both of these small white lies were overcome by changing my thinking and putting the lies to the test. But we often don't challenge ourselves. It usually takes the intervention of others to get us to test the truth of our lies.

One day I made the mistake of trying to pass off a big lie while in the company of ETR Publisher Matt Smith. We were talking about the importance of live events in the Early to Rise world.

"I dunno Matt," I said, preparing to deliver my lie, "I can't do that. I just don't have the energy to answer questions all day."

Matt, the human polygraph, just looked at me with his patented incredulous look.

"Really?" he asked.

And then he raised the eyebrow and said again, "REALLY?"

That's all he needed to say. He called my bluff. The charade was over. I was caught in the lie. The truth was I just didn't want to do it. It wasn't that I physically couldn't do it. In fact, I hadn't even tried to do it.

And that's how it is for all of us.

It's not that we can't get up earlier, or go to bed earlier, or make time to work on our side business early in the morning or late at night. It's just that it's easier for us to say that we can't...and to use that as the excuse, rather than to put ourselves to the test outside of our comfort zones.

The worst part about telling ourselves the big "I can't" lie is that we aren't even trying.

It's one thing to quit. At least you started. But when we tell ourselves the "I can't" lie, we do so without even having had the courage to try in the first place. And that's the ultimate weakness. Not trying.

When you combine your ultimate weakness with your biggest lie you end up with a life of frustration, a lack of progress, and the dishonor of knowing that you are avoiding self-growth in order to remain in the safe confines of your comfort zone.

We lie to protect ourselves. And it works. It saves us from social and physical discomfort...in the short-term. But in the long run, it makes us weakened slaves shackled to a lifetime of unfulfilled potential.

"I can't move to another country and learn another language even though it promises me better opportunities."

"I can't go without bread at meals or my morning donut before lunch."

"I can't follow my dreams and start my own business even though it would allow me to help thousands of other people."

"I can't tell anyone how I feel even though it would strengthen our relationship and encourage more open and honest communication."

"I can't, I can't, I can't" really means "I won't, I won't, I won't even try."

I'm going to protect myself and stay safe from harm and I darn well plan on keeping it that way. That's what "I can't" really means.

But is it true that you can't?

Really?

REALLY?

The truth is you don't want to. At least be honest. Start with that. Then see where you can go from there. Take a tiny step into the waters of Lake Cant and see if perhaps it's not as cold, dark and deep as you thought it once was.

The legends of the bogeyman in the closet and monsters under the bed are fine for children. But they are expected to grow out of these fears and excuses. And they are expected to realize that their fears are all in their minds.

It's time we learned this as well.

The next time you say, "I can't", follow that up by yelling out, "Why Not?"

Do it and answer honestly.

Is it that you can't or that you won't?

You'll realize that the invisible brick wall between you and "can" has only been erected in your mind. It is almost never a physical limitation.

Your body is capable of surviving without bread, your mind can be trained to fall asleep before 10pm, and you can learn a new language at any age. You can make time for exercise and for working on a side Internet business at home, either before or after work.

You can, you can, you can. You are not too old to change.

It all starts with saying, "I Can, I Will, I Am".

Let's stop lying to ourselves.

Really.

How to Make a Success of Your Career Choice

‘God’s delay is not God’s denial’ I have always heard people say. How does affect your career choice you might ask?

You see making a choice of career is not easy. It is hard work. In point of fact it is not a mean feat. Beside you will encounter a lot of delays in the achievement of your career goals. Since it is something that affects your life and how you will want to live it, making a success of it therefore becomes a necessity. Why is this so?

It is a known fact that by making a success of your career choice it enables you the average career seeker discover your passion early and consequently your true calling in life. Also it makes for a happier and contented person who loves what he does for a living and is enthusiastic about it.
So what are those strategies you could utilize to make a success of your career choice?

1. Discovery of your primary aim: The number one key strategy for any smart young star aspiring for success is to identify the primary purpose in life. By this is meant a picture of the kind of life you which to live. What is it that you want to be most in the world? What is it that you love doing most and will not tire even if you continue doing it forever? You need to ask yourself questions to enable you find answers to how to discover your primary aim. Without asking relevant questions you cannot get enabling answers.
Every successful person must have asked such questions early in his life and discovered early that he wanted to be whatever he has become. Bill Gates wanted to become a successful software manufacturer and he became a programmer of repute and one of the best this world has seen. Think of Microsoft and you will remember Bill Gates. What is your own vision? What is your primary purpose in life? That is your purpose or your vision in a period of time. Your purpose or vision is a continuous thing. It is something that shapes your life and it is a life time thing. A young person who has not done this will only accept whatever career that is thrust upon him or her. You will never be happy in whatever career you might have chosen. Your career is your life. It determines how you want to live your life. You therefore need to have a picture of what you want your life to be like (your vision) and this will guide you into your choice of career. Primary aim helps your awareness about yourself. It helps you to get clear certain truths about yourself and how you should live your life.

2. Self Assessment/Personal Audit: The next strategy on making a success of your career choice is self assessment. Choosing the right career and one which you could make a success of requires conducting a personal in depth analysis of yourself. You should conduct a personal audit of yourself. You need to know what your interests are. You need to know your likes and dislikes. You need to discover your goals and aspirations in life. You must decide what you feel most comfortable doing. You should find out your skills and personalities. You should also find out your desires. In point of fact, desire is the starting point of all great things in life including choosing a successful career. This fact was alluded to by Napoleon Hill in his chart buster classic “Think and Grow Rich”. Therefore with the assessment of your desires, interests, skills and personalities you will be making a great move towards choosing a fitting career and making a success out of it.

3. Creation of Standards: This is another key strategy in the choice of career. By standard is meant benchmarks to measure your performance against. Without a clearly defined vision of your life, you will have no standards by which you can evaluate your role in whatever career you have chosen nor any criteria with which to gauge and measure whether you are in the right career (or considering to pursue one) which will work for you. No matter your primary aim, if the career you have chosen or intend to pursue does not mesh with your vision you can never be happy. That is where standards come in. The only way by which you could evaluate yourself therefore is by looking at where you are at each point in your career choice (work, time, money, culture, relationships) and measuring it against the picture of who you wish to be. It is therefore based on these benchmarks/standards that decisions and choices concerning your career should be made. This you can do by envisioning model(s) which will then serve as your measuring rod. A model is the prototype of the kind of life you wish to live. You will then create rules by which you will live your life. The rules and the standards should go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. The creation of these standards is however a continuous thing. They are required for each stage of your life.

4. Discovering your passion: This is another top strategy in the quest to make a success of your selected profession. By passion is meant that thing or activity you love doing and which you can never get tired of doing. Observe any successful person and you will see a person who loves absolutely what he does. In point of fact it is impossible to achieve long term success in any endeavor including your profession unless you love what you are doing. Therefore you can never be successful in your profession unless you passionately love what you are doing. Backed with enthusiasm and commitment making a success out of your chosen calling will certainly be achieved.

5. Narrowing down on your options: Having identified your interests, skills, personality and passion you should then endeavor to identify the occupations that are in conformity with them. You then narrow down your options by trying your hands on those selected to see which one will fit you the best and which one you will be most enthusiastic about doing. The idea is to choose the one you will love to repeat doing today, tomorrow, in a month’s time, in a year’s time and forever without your passion waning. You can try them on part time basis to know select the best.

6. Setting Achievable Career Goals: Another strategy is that of setting of achievable career goals. Eventually you will reach a stage where you would have identified a career you will love pursuing and want to be successful with. You should therefore start mapping out the strategies on how to achieve your goal. Whether you are still in school or you have left school and still job searching or you are already employed and want to make a career change, the process is all the same. If you are still in school, you will need to identify what course you will read to enable you achieve your goal. You will then plan on how long it will take to do so. If you are a school leaver or an employee desiring a career change, you will have to know what qualifications you must have if you already do not have one, how to craft a professional resume, how to write a cover letter, preparation for job interview and working on how to acquire the necessary professional certificate if do not have one. If however you desire being self employed, how do you go about it?

These strategies on making a success of your career choice are like a therapy to an employee who has been trying to find solution to finding his calling in life. This is because it makes choosing a career easier to achieve. By taking action on these strategies it can lead to incalculable success because serving by doing what you love is one of the surest ways to wealth.

You Get Paid for Implementation...

and not for your ideas.

In point of fact, ideas are two for a penny. There so many ideas out there that yet to be implemented. They are worthless without implementation. You can never make it without doing. The richest people are those who DO and not those who imagines. Imagination without implementation equals zero. Period.

Implementation however becomes a reality when you know how to manage your time better. Waste your time on frivolities and not on implementation of your ideas and you will see how penniless you will become. Manage your time better and you will discover how much you will achieve and consequently how successful you will be.

In the article below Dan Kennedy delivers a harsh reality about how time management propels or hinders our progress in life. Following it will lead to monumental success while ignoring it could lead to FAILURE

- Adekunle Agbaje



The Harsh Reality About Your Time
By Dan Kennedy

Having recently had another birthday click over on the odometer, time is on my mind. It's never far from it in my work-cave, because I have strategically placed more than a dozen clocks around the room and can't look in any direction without seeing one.

As I describe in my book, No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs, I organize everything with start and pre-determined end times. If someone has a phone appointment with me, they know in advance when it ends, not just when it starts. And it does end as scheduled, even if in mid-sentence.

I have trained and conditioned myself to be hypersensitive to time, and I train my clients to respect my hypersensitivity. Why?

Because your bank balance and your satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it is more a reflection of how you invest your time than a reflection of anything else.

This is the more dominant factor in wealth or relative poverty, success or failure, fulfillment or frustration than all externals combined -- whatever foreign country is in collapse, whatever volcano or oil spill is occurring, whether the economy is booming or struggling, whether your particular industry is healthy or diseased. These external things are fluid.

In my 40 years as a serial entrepreneur, made-from-scratch multimillionaire, and business advisor to thousands, I've seen all these things and worse come and go, occur and occur again. And I've seen some entrepreneurs surrender their attitudes and reality to them, while others defy them and thrive.

My primary area of specialization is "marketing," and most of my articles for ETR are laser-focused on that. But truth is, your ability to sell of goods, services, or concepts is sabotaged or supported by how much control you exercise over the investment, direction, and consumption of your time and, with it, your energy and creativity.

In reality, time is the asset the entrepreneur owns outright and has total control over. I don't really need to follow you around and observe how you use your time to gauge how you're doing in business. I only need hear about your philosophy of time. That is what governs your behavior and what you will tolerate or refuse to tolerate in the behavior of others.

For example, how do you determine which people you're going to spend your time with? One of my litmus tests: If somebody can't keep seemingly minor commitments, I know I can't trust them to honor important ones either. And if I allow myself to hang around with them, soon they'll be the cause of me failing to honor my commitments.

Another example: Do you actually handle time as money, not just give lip service to the idea? Can you tell me what your time must be worth per minute to achieve your income goal? The question I ask myself is: Will this use of my time move me measurably closer to my meaningful goals? Is there even a chance it will? If not, why do it?

It's difficult to find a clock in Las Vegas casinos, because those casinos are designed to separate you from as much of your money as possible -- to make you a loser. And that is best done by dulling your sensitivity to the passing of time. The same principle applies to your business life. The surest way to be a loser is to be casual about time.

I've worked up close 'n' personal with many, many entrepreneurs who've converted ideas and grit into fortunes. The difference between them and the majority of also-rans is never the originality or even the quality of their ideas.

As a matter of fact, I've seen fortunes manufactured from mediocre ideas and great ideas stillborn. This is important, because far too many entrepreneurs -- and, frankly, those who observe them, report on them, write about them, and glorify their success stories -- still hold up The Great Idea as the pedestal-worthy holy grail. That is worship of a false god.

When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were first added to the NFL as an expansion team, they set records for consecutive losses and embarrassing performances. After one game, a reporter stuck a microphone in John McKay's face, and asked how he felt about his team's execution that day. McKay quipped that he was in favor of it.

That's reality. Execute or be executed. It's how business really works. Hardly anybody gets paid for ideas. Not even the Imagineers at Disney. We actually get paid for what we get done. To the ignorant, my area of marketing seems to be about ideas. The insiders know: It is about implementation.

The entrepreneur is in a situation that encourages poor productivity: He is his own boss. Often this produces an unproductive employee and a lenient, dysfunctional boss. A two-fer. That's why you must create a success environment for yourself. You must impose strict deadlines on yourself and be ruthlessly resistant to wasting your time. Hold yourself accountable, hour by hour.

If you aren't willing to work under such self-imposed pressure, I suggest you forget the idea of getting and staying rich as king of your own kingdom. Every great kingdom needs a ruler with an iron fist.

The Truth about Forming Productive Habits

‘When you choose a habit, you also choose the result of that habit.’
- Zig Ziglar

In the bestseller “The greatest Salesman in the World”, Og Mandino told the story of Hafid who was reputed to be the greatest and perhaps the most successful salesman in his time. Hafid, a supposedly poor fellow went from being a common camel boy to being a renowned salesman and a very wealthy person.

How did Hafid become so successful? Hafid realized early enough that the difference between those who are successful and the failures lies in the difference between their habits. He realized that good or productive habits are the key to all success, while bad or unproductive habits are the unlocked door to failure. He therefore formed good habits and became their slave. He went on to completely destroy his bad habits. He therefore spent a few moment everyday learning, imbibing and mastering good and productive habits while destroying his bad and unproductive habits. He mastered such habits like persistence, avoidance of procrastination, mastering of emotions, laughing at the world, taking action, avoiding self pity, goal setting etc, etc. With time he became the success he desired and wanted to be.

What is habit?

Steve Covey in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” defined habits as “the overlap between knowledge (what you do), skill (how to do it) and attitude (knowing or why to do it or want to do it).” Horace Mann sees habit as “A cable or thread which we weave everyday and at last we cannot break it.” To Orison Swett Marden “The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act, we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, though an act.”

From these definitions I have come to the following deductions:
1. Habits are learned and can therefore be cultivated.
2. Once it is mastered it becomes part of you and therefore irrevocable.
3. Habits if not resisted soon becomes a necessity.
4. When you choose a habit you also choose the result of that habit.
5. When you gain control of your habits you gain control of your life.
6. You must denounce and destroy bad or unproductive habits.
7. If you are desirous of being successful you must therefore cultivate good and productive habits.

Productive habits required for your success

The man on top of the mountain did not just fall there. He must have taken some steps before getting there. Likewise success in any endeavor in life leaves clues. Some of these clues are in the form of right conduct and productive habits. Detailed below are some habits which I believe could move you ahead in life and fast tracking your success.

 Continuously beginning with the end in mind: Drawing up your personal vision, mission, creed, value statements and principles.
 Persistence: The habit of never conceding defeat in any endeavor until success is attained. This is the habit of trying and trying again until your goal is achieved.
 Enthusiasm: The love of whatever it is you are doing at the moment. This is the habit of enjoying whatever you do for a living.
 Mastering your emotion: Gaining control over your moods and feelings rather than allowing them to control your actions. Habit of taking positive actions.
 Appreciation: Being grateful for what so ever it is that is done for you. The habit of showing gratitude to God and fellow human beings.
 Goal setting: Being focused on what you plan to achieve. The habit of identifying what you plan to achieve and setting plans of action on how to achieve them.
 Planning: He who fails to plan is planning to fail. This is the habit of preparing on how to achieve your aims and goals.
 Multiplying your value: Making a choice on what you want to be and adding value to mankind through service.
 Pro-activity: Being responsible for your actions and taking control of your life. The habit of being self directed rather than being others directed.
 Putting first things first: Management of self and time. The habit of management of yourself.
 Continuous development: Maintenance of the spiritual, mental and physical self. This is the habit of continually sharpening the saw or continuous learning and personal development.

Now to the truth about all these talk about productive habits. It is one thing to know about them but without taking action about imbibing and using them it will amount to naught. Knowledge about them does not give you any power nor make you successful. It is applying the knowledge that is power. You have to avoid procrastination on them and commit your dreams and goals to action. Your dreams are worthless, your plans are dust and your goals will be impossible unless they are followed by action.

Cultivating and mastering these productive and unshakeable habits of the successful people is the only medium of achieving success. You should realize that failure is your inability to reach your goals in life. According to Jackson King, “The secret of success for every successful person lies in the fact that he has formed the habit of doing things that failure do not like to do.” A wise man once said “Men do not decide their future. They decide their HABITS and their habits decide their future.”

You should therefore cultivate and master these productive habits now if you desire to be successful because excellence of character is nothing but excellence of habits. You should therefore never take your focus off these habits if you really desire to be successful.

Has this post helped you in your quest to be successful? I will appreciate your comments please. Thank you for sharing your time with me.

Most Significant Interview Questions Prospective Employees Needs to Be Asking the Hiring Manager

‘A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.’

- Chinese Proverb

Recently I received a call from one of my protégées. For the purpose of this discourse let us call his name John. You see John whose career I have been monitoring over a period of five years is presently at crossroads career wise. I recruited him for one of our client organization sometime in 2011 as a human resource professional. Even back then I knew he was a ‘Star’. We have therefore remained close ever since.

John had since left the organization I recruited him for and is presently working with another organization. According to him, his employer recently employed a General Manager to head his department who after working with him for sometime saw the potentials and consequently felt threatened. According to my protégée, this GM is very shallow but tries showing off as if he knows. To avoid a situation whereby John would be getting glories for his accomplishments, this man avoids passing jobs to him. He prefers giving jobs to one of John’s colleagues with less ability and skills. The clear message was to frustrate John and get him to voluntarily resign his appointment with the organization so that he could plant a crony who would always do his bidding. Without going into the nitty gritty of the situation John wanted out of the organization fast and at all cost.


John had started seeking employment elsewhere and being a star he has been receiving invitations for interviews. One in particular was interested in employing him, but he was not comfortable with their set up. He had met with their management team and during the chat he was able to display his ability and they were convinced about his technical depth and practical knowledge. You see, the company wanted to set up their HR department and they wanted to employ an expert to make that possible. Having been uncomfortable with their set up he tried to drive them off with obviously outrageous compensation demands. In John they have seen that prospective candidate and of course invited him for a final chat with their MD. That was when John called me up to seek for my advice.


First, I told John to be wary of taking any decision that he would regret later. He wanted to leave his present place of employment where he is not appreciated at all cost. Yes. He wanted a more challenging job. Yes. He wanted a work environment where he can grow. Yes. I pointed out however that whenever he decides to move, he should seek employment in an organization where he could realize his primary aim in life. I then told him that there certain questions prospective employees should be asking during interviews that would make them elicit certain facts from prospective employers. These facts would help them decide whether they should join an organization or not.

Are you presently going through the same kind of challenge as my protégée? Or you are presently at loss as to what questions you should be asking during interview sessions? Or you are uncertain about what questions to ask the recruiter to learn more about a potential employer? Or you happen to be one of the job seekers who during interview chats get tongue tied when asked by hiring managers if they have any question to ask? We talent hunters have known it for a fact that most job seekers when asked whether they have any question to ask more often ask questions related only to salaries or irrelevant questions. The job interview is supposed to be a two way communication. Much as the employer wants to learn about you, the only way you as a potential employee can learn about a potential employer is by asking probing questions. It is by asking such questions that you can learn what an employer expects from a person that will occupy a position on offer. It is by asking the hiring manager questions that an interviewee can unearth the attributes, skills and experience expected of the person that will be occupying a position on offer.

The objective in this article is to highlight the kind of probing questions job hunters needs to be asking during interview sessions to enable them discover certain facts about an organization they intend to work for that can assist them in reaching decisions about their professional careers.

What therefore are those questions potential employees should be asking during interview sessions that can assist them in learning what they need to know about a potential employer? What questions can a job seeker ask to reveal whether he is a perfect match for a job on offer? What questions must a candidate ask a hiring manager during a job chat to show that she can perform well on the job?

The following are the six most significant questions I have come across that are likely to reveal to you the potential employee the relevant information required about a prospective employer or a particular job.

What is the next step in the recruitment process? This is one of the top interview questions a potential employee needs to ask the hiring manager. This kind of question when asked will enable the job seeker to know whether that stage of the interview session ends the interview or there is still more to be expected.
What are the key attributes the employer is looking for in a person who will occupy the position on offer? By asking this question, you will be able to know more about those special skills and talents required of the person occupying the position on offer. Whatever requirements stated in the job advert might not be detailed enough. Therefore asking directly will enable the hiring manager shed more light on this.
Can you tell me the characteristics of a person that has met or exceeded your expectation when occupying this position? This is another top interview question required to learn more about the strengths of a person that will occupy the position on offer so that it will assist you in your preparation.
Can you tell me what you will like best or least when one is working in this organization? This question is designed to help you learn more about the way to conduct and comport herself in the course of performing your duties when offered the position.
Can you describe the typical day/week for a person occupying this position? This is another top interview question that can be used to learn about an employer and is designed to learn about the typical tasks of a person occupying the position. It is designed to learn more about the roles you are supposed to perform when offered the position.
What do you expect me to perform in the first sixty to ninety days of engagement?: This kind of question when asked is supposed to enable you to learn about what is required of you during the period of probation. In most organizations, the probationary period is between two and three months, therefore asking this question will assist you in knowing what is expected of you and if you will be able to meet the expectations or not.
From the information provided above, the challenge of knowing the top interview questions prospective employees should be asking hiring managers can therefore not be over emphasized. This is because these interview questions when asked will allow you the potential employee to know whether you want the job on offer or not if you are eventually selected. Further, such questions will enable you to know whether you can do the job if you are eventually recruited. Finally, this kind of probing questions will enable you to know whether you want to work with this particular employer if eventually you are recruited. These interview questions are therefore designed to assist you in your bid to learn as much as possible about a potential employer and the job on offer in particular.

Thank you for sharing your time with me. I hope you have benefited from reading this post as much as I have benefited from writing it.

How to Write a Resume like a Professional Even If You Are Not One

Every job seeker knows how to write a resume. It is however only the professional resume writer that knows how to craft a resume that is attention grabbing. You see, the real problem isn’t about writing a resume. It is recognizing that you have written a CV that is great and one that market ‘You’ compellingly to a prospective employer. Take Jane (a former employee in a company whose staff was outsourced to our company) for example. After doing a critique of her resume and informing her of my opinion about her resume being unappealing, she told me she did not think her CV was that bad. In point of fact she did not believe me at all. Believe me or not, she has remained stuck in a job she did not like and consequently frustrated and dejected. So much for her distrust for my professional opinion and advice!
In my over 25 years plus as a human resource practitioner I have had the benefit of scrutinizing thousands of resumes. Some were good, many bad and the greatest number outright ugly. What do you say of resumes of 6 – 8 pages packed with a whole lot of irrelevant information? Or generic CVs not targeted to a job on offer? Or what do you say about resumes without any compelling career summary? Of course they would suffer rejection from the hiring manager because they are not attention grabbing and if not they cannot win the job seeker any interview invitation. The objective of your CV is to win you the prospective employee an invitation for an interview and nothing more. What therefore makes a job searcher a perfect candidate such that he gets invited for interviews over and over again? It is by crafting an appealing resume that is appealing and devoid of errors. Ninety- five percent of job seekers however present CV’s that are replete with errors and therefore becoming barriers to their being shortlisted for interviews. Most job hunters often do not bother to go over their resumes to find out whether there are errors before submitting them. This is why they do not command a second look from hiring managers other than the initial consideration. So how do you then know when you have crafted an attention grabbing resume the way a professional would? How do you craft a resume that is attention grabbing and therefore worthy of selection for an interview? 1. Conducting Proper research on self and the company putting a job on offer: Your CV tells your professional story. Without you the prospective job hunter having substantial information on your attitude, skills and achievements how will you be able to match it with the demands of the job put on offer? Likewise without you the job seeker having substantial knowledge about the company putting a job on offer, how will you be able to match your personal details with the needs of the company? That is where the benefits of research on self and the company come into play. It makes you the employment seeker identify those skills, attitude and accomplishments which otherwise might have been hidden. Likewise the job hunter will be able to identify those needs of the company putting the job on offer that otherwise might have been hidden. Matching the needs of the company with your skills and accomplishments and crafting a relevant and appealing CV will always win you the desired interview. Your resume must therefore be targeted to the job on offer and not generic. 2. Avoidance of irrelevant and inadequate information in your resume: This is another vital blunder employment seekers often make that prevent them from writing an attention grabbing professional resume. Ninety percent of job hunters concentrate on providing information on their personal details like date of birth, address, colleges attended, job history and their responsibilities leaving out the meaty details about what the employer actually needs. The employer is only interested in the value and benefits you can bring to his company and nothing more. He is interested in your skills and accomplishments and how they match his requirements. Similarly, you need to include a compelling career summary in your resume. Any information outside these is inadequate and consequently worthless. This is basically the reason why some job seekers write pages of worthless information! 3. Avoidance of structural errors: Nine out of ten resumes being considered for short listing by any recruiter are filled with structural errors. They are often so poorly written that as a hiring manager scrutinizing them makes you feel like sleeping. You must therefore avoid these errors (e.g. grammatical, fond size, fond type, balancing between white space and resume) when crafting your resume. Research has shown that recruiters spend less than ten seconds skimming through resumes because of these errors which often ease their task. 4. Subjecting the resume to a set of checklist: Further, to make your CV attention grabbing, you must subject it to a set checklist of course. The application of this checklist makes communication of what you have in your resume more concise and in the end makes reaching your goal of being invited for an interview more promising. Tactically, using a checklist makes writing your professional resume clear and logical. Furthermore, it also makes writing it more economical. The use of these checklists will also send some messages to recruiters. One is that you are an organized person. Two being that you have taken extra time to compose your resume and by doing so have given more than cursory attention to the employer’s requirements and consequently added more value. Above all therefore, the recruiter scrutinizing your resume will be tempted to give your resume a second look if it has been subjected to the test of the checklist. The following checklist should therefore be applied:  proofreading of curriculum vitae for errors  use of resume samples for comparison  appearance for aesthetic beauty  relevance of resume to the job on offer From the foregoing, the challenge of how to write a compelling resume the way a professional would must have been adequately taken care of. This is because the kind of mistake employment seekers often make when preparing their resumes must have been identified. Another reason being that it helps you to identify the best ways of avoiding such mistakes. I hope you have benefited immensely from reading this piece as much as I have in writing it. Thank you for sharing your time with me.

How to Use Unconventional Tactics to Enhance Your Job Search Effectiveness

‘To have unconventional success, you cannot be guided by conventional wisdom.’
- David Swenson

Hiring managers have realized that to get your dream job, you need to ditch the conventional job hunting techniques and utilize the unconventional job search tactics especially if you want your job seeking to be result oriented. Recruiters have therefore found out that the unconventional tactics (sometimes referred to as guerilla tactics) outperforms the traditional techniques in several ways.
1. The unconventional job hunting tactics are proactive. This is because when applying the tactics, you help set the pace of your search campaign through assertive weekly networking calls/emails plus weekly follow-up contacts with hiring managers concerning your most recent applications for both posted and anticipated job openings. This action will obviously increase the pace of your results.
2. Unconventional job search tactics are highly targeted in that they focus on specific industries, employers, geographic areas and positions which will assist you in increasing the number of interview calls and job offers you are likely to receive.
3. Further, these tactics are customized. This is because as opposed to the traditional techniques, the guerilla techniques stress touting your individuality by injecting your personality and career related attributes into your resume, cover letters and interview responses while also making use of industry related keywords that boost the odds that hiring managers looking for people like you will always find you.
4. They are also free and low cost. As a job seeker, you can take advantage of many of the job opportunities available on the internet these days. What are Unconventional Job Search Tactics? Unconventional job search tactics are those job seeking techniques that are unconventional, often radical and are always strategic. It means getting creative and conducting your job search differently from the crowd. You will have to introduce the element of surprise into your job hunting. Hiring managers have observed that most job hunters do their job seeking the conventional way which makes it boring and consequently often do not deliver the desired results. They conduct their job search either from the pages of newspapers or magazines or online just like every other person. These techniques are however worn out and no more delivering the desired result of invitation for interviews.
You see, job hunting is like selling and you the job seeker are the product. If the demand is therefore not there for “you” the product, you need to sit back study what is available in the job market and devise more effective ways of honing your job hunt. If need be, you might have to change whatever it is you are selling (your product- you). You might have to retool. Let us use the Pareto Principle (80/20%) to amplify this. For a start, only 20% of available job opportunities are advertised either online or in newspapers/magazines. Therefore 80% of available job opportunities are not advertised. 80% of job hunters scramble for the 20% of the jobs offers advertised online or in newspapers while the lucky and resourceful 20% of job seekers who use guerrilla tactics are the ones benefiting from the 80% of jobs that are not advertised online or in newspapers. These are the job hunters getting invitation for interviews faster and consequently getting employed faster. To make your job hunting more effective and consequently get employed quicker, you need to join these 20% getting access to the unadvertised jobs.
That is where the guerilla tactics of job search comes into play. Unconventional Tactics you can use to enhance your job search effectiveness 1. Use of your phone: Job seekers often do not do this. Only 1 – 2% does it. It is similar to cold calling in sales which most salesmen hate to do. However, by calling the hiring manager or a person that can influence your employment in any organization, you are not requesting for an interview but only starting and building a relationship. You should also try letting the person you are calling know the person that introduced him or her to you. Chances are that you might not be successful at your first try; you should however endeavor to persist by following up through emails and further phone calls. Try building a rapport with the hiring manager and a few others within your target company. That way you might stumble on some leads that would be of assistance during your interview.
2. Hunt for companies rather than for jobs: The joy in this style of job search is that hunting efforts is targeted. Having researched industries, companies and even people, you then focus your search on those industries and companies (and of course people) you desire to work in and work for. You should therefore target companies and not jobs in your search. Further, you need to research your target companies and start working for them before you are invited for any interview at all.
3. Network, network and network: You need to take advantage of all your network connections. At the end of your conversation with any new connection, ask this all important question “Who else do you think I should be talking to?” This way you get to expand your base and get introduced to those who could assist you with your search. Your networking should however be smart and creative. You can network with your alumni, ex employees, friends, career office etc.
4. Read newspapers and magazines to get leads: You can get leads for your job search through reading of newspapers and magazines. You can uncover leads by (i) monitoring the business sections for companies signing new commercial and contracts which portends a good sign for increased capacity. (ii) Search for companies receiving venture capital. Such companies are likely to have a viable business model and will inevitably need new employees.
5. Keep detailed records of your job search: You will need a detailed record of every company you have sent your resumes with a view to following up on your search. Each time you send your resume you should record the following (i) Title of post applied for. (ii) Company name. (iii) Name/title of person addressed in the cover letter. (iv) The source of job lead. (v) Date cover letter/resume was sent. (vi) Date of intended follow up.
6. Use temporary agencies to get full time jobs: Savvy employers use temporary agencies as screening device for needed talents. This is often used as a ploy to put temporary workers through trial/probationary period. A conscientious and talented employee could always get hired through this method. Therefore if offered a temporary job grab it with both hands.
7. Try not to lose contact with ex employers: If you left your old employers in good terms there is nothing stopping you from contacting them once in a while. You could send a short email or make personal visit to notify them that you are still available in the market. They might have clients or contacts that might need your service. They might even want you back too.
8. Try to commence working for potential employers from the interview session: Instead of being like other job seekers, try giving yourself a head start to get hired. Try doing something unusual during the interview. For example if you are applying for a sales position, try going with some sales lead for the company. On the other hand if you are applying for an editing position, try attending the interview with a copy of the publication’s article with your correction. This way you will be adding value to the company before you even start working.
9. Use social network to hunt for jobs: You will not use social network to hunt for jobs directly. You will only use it to build relationships and increase your network. Your network connections could therefore be of assistance when job hunting. They could provide you with leads. Twitter, Face book and LinkedIn could be of assistance here.
10. Send articles about a potential employer: In this guerilla tactic, you are only sending to a potential employer interesting articles about the company. You will attach a note to the articles saying “Thought you might be interested in these.” You could also let the hiring manager know that you are interested in the company and why you are interested in the company.
From the tactics detailed above and several changes being witnessed in job market in recent times, one will realize that the conventional method of job hunting alone no longer works. It is when combined with the unconventional/guerilla techniques that the desired results are achieved. This is because the guerilla tactics of job search penetrate the hidden job market. Further, it restores your life balance because it enhances the quality of your life by automating your job hunt.
I hope you have benefited from reading this article as much as I have in posting it. If you have my joy will be in your taking massive action on it because taking in the information without applying it is poverty.
Thank you for sharing your time with me.