Career OverDrive!
  • Career Stack
  • COD Channel
  • PsycheOS Channel
  • Blog
  • Content Archives

Don't Go Back To School! SWAN, Tweak & Test

3/31/2014

0 Comments

 
By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


There's a common response or reaction among both students who have just graduated and have "no luck finding a job" and among working professionals who have been routinely passed over for promotion or who are currently having  "no luck finding a job".

So what exactly is that response or reaction?

Come on, you know what it is -- These people must all be somehow lacking in something and that something is "education" or "knowledge" which can be easily be "fixed" by "going back to school".

Now, while "going back to school" sounds good on the surface (after all, we can never be too educated or too knowledgeable, right?) it ignores many factors and even presents risks and dangers to your current (or budding) career as well as your future career.

Just because you are not hired or you are passed over for promotion it doesn't mean that you are lacking any knowledge. In fact, in some cases (many cases actually) involving office politics and power you will be passed over not because you lack anything but because you are too good or too knowledgeable.

With that said, even if you do lack knowledge, there is no guarantee that pursuing a new formal education will provide you with the necessary skills or knowledge you desire or think you need.

In fact, it may be far cheaper to study or develop those skills on your own or, if you must, you can simply take some short and very  focused certification classes.

You also would be well advised to determine exactly what skills you are lacking and then ask yourself if your being passed over for a promotion or not landing a job has anything to do with a lack of skills.

In most cases, it doesn't. Instead, we can isolate the problem in areas such as:
1. Your resume -- the way your skills are packaged and productized.
2. Your interviewing skills -- how do you communicate and convey your value.
3. The way you locate or surface positions.
4. And so forth.

Collectively, I term these the "Job Search 4P's" or "4P's of Job Searches".

Going back to school can also be extremely expensive both in direct costs for tuition and out of pocket costs as well as the opportunity costs of not working (assuming you are going full time, you've forgone that salary) and in the case of taking out loans you then risk limiting your option for jobs in the future as you now have an additional fixed overhead.

In some cases you'll find that this new knowledge increases you career options but conversely and simultaneously having this new debt also reduces your options.

So what should a person do?

Well, look around. As just one example. if you are passed over for a promotion and you are told "you need an MBA", why not open your eyes and confirm if every other manager in your firm (or industry) has an MBA.

Trust me, they don't.

And you'll quickly see that not only does not everyone have an MBA (MBA as just one example, not to pick on any degree) but that, lo and behold, some managers don't even have a college degree!

There are many other factors to research and analyze beyond this but the best way to do it is to simply make the most of what you have now while tweaking and testing it in the job market.

Because the job market's response to you is all that matters. No degree, certificates or anything else matters. Are you getting invited to interviews? Are you getting written offers? That's what matters.

Specifically, you need to SWAN & tweak before you decide to "go back to school".

What is SWAN? Well, the SWAN principle is:

Sell
What's
Available
Now

Whatever skills you have now, make the most of them in your job search (and/or at your present job). This may be using them to develop a visible and provable portfolio (volunteering or working to create tie-off projects, etc.) where these skills are demonstrated and productized.

Using the SWAN principle will also force you to improve how you package, present, communicate and convey your skills and value to your current employer or prospective employer.

Forget your dreams about all the attention your shiny new degree will supposedly bring you and focus on selling what you have now and the value you can add to a prospective employer -- right now.

Once you know what you are doing it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel.

And you'll find that you don't need to go back to school, at least not "now", in almost every single case.

*Just to note, in this case, I use the term Job Search 4P's to describe a set of specialized job search skills as well as one overall process of the job search lifecycle. If you are familiar with classical marketing literature there is also the Marketing 4P's which are Product, Place (distribution), Promotion and Price.
LEARN MORE: CRUSH ANY CAREER!™
0 Comments

Event: Sick & Tired of Resume-Collecting Recruiters? Fire Your Recruiter & Take Control of Your Life! 

3/19/2014

0 Comments

 
By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive! / SiliconEdge

Mark your calendars for this exciting, upcoming event!

(FYI: This is not a gratuitous beat down on recruiters, it's a hard-edged, constructive conversation to give job seekers the unadulterated truth along with immediately actionable, life changing information and know-how - all recruiters are more than welcome).
Picture
Speaker: James Santagata
Founder and Managing Director of Career OverDrive! and SiliconEdge.


Most job seekers naively view Recruiters as the "Gatekeepers" to a treasure trove of jobs.

And why not? A recruiter has "all the answers", "tons of experience" and knows the industry like nobody's business: The client, the hiring manager , they do this for a living -- best of all, it won't cost you a thing.

Best of all, what possibly could go wrong?

A lot actually.
Picture
  The recruiting industry is notoriously opaque and riddled with informational asymmetries,  full of traps and pitfalls that can cost you dearly in terms of job opportunities, job offers, lower starting salaries and worst of all, even your reputation.

In this exciting, interactive session James will explore and then offer specific solutions to:

  • What value do recruiters add to the job search besides collecting resumes?
  • What do they do with your resume and how do they determine job fit & skill matching?
  • What impact does local office hiring demands have on MNC operations in Japan?
  • How can a foreigner sidestep the "language requirement" and put the focus on skills?
  • How can a 40+ year old job seeker easily land an interview and close the deal?

Join James as he exposes the inner workings of the recruiting industry while guiding you to job search success.

Bring and ask your hardest or most fantastical questions on recruiters and the job search process.

James is the Founder and Managing Director of Career OverDrive!(tm) and SiliconEdge(tm) as well as Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Coaching Alliance (APCA).

He is a proven International Executive Coach and Leadership Development professional having deep US, Japan and Asia-Pacific coaching, training and consulting experience coupled with hands-on business & technical expertise. With over 20 years of industry experience, James has spent 11 of those years working in Silicon Valley for companies ranging from New Venture Start-ups to established Industry Leaders engaged in developing nascent technologies & pioneering emerging markets.

He is also the author of the forthcoming book, "Crush Any Interview!" and is a Certified Professional Coach, Certified Employment Interview Professional, Certified NLP Practitioner and has successfully completed the Corporate Human Resources Management and How To Be A Successful Trainer programs as well as the Principles of Persuasion Workshop.

Date: April 17th (Thursday)
Time: 18:30 open, 19:00 start, 20:30 end
Venue: FCCJ - The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan | Map to FCCJ
Cost*: ¥4,000 ICA members; ¥6,000 non-members.
Register Now & Fire Your Recruiter! >>
0 Comments

Don't Waste Your Life Waiting For The Bus To Come Pick You Up...It Isn't Coming...

3/12/2014

0 Comments

 
By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive!

Don't waste your life waiting for the bus to come pick you up. 

Newsflash: It ain't coming!

Well, at least it ain't coming anytime soon or it would have been here by now...

Sometimes, the smart move, sometimes the only move is to make a conscious decision to lace-up your boots and start the long, back breaking journey on foot.

You'll be told by others, perhaps even through your own internal talk, that you aren't ready, that you aren't prepared, that the timing isn't right.

But you need to realize one thing while you ask yourself another.

Life isn't a dress rehearsal and if you aren't ready now, without getting in the arena of life, bench marking your skills, tempering and honing the skills you already have now while developing new ones, when, pray tell, when will you ever be ready?

The answer is NEVER.

And in that case your future is as clear as day and ends with a Death Bed Regret.

Remember, we almost never regret what we do, we regret what we didn't do.
0 Comments

Speaking Event: Cloud Computing: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters

3/12/2014

0 Comments

 
By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive! / SiliconEdge

I dug up and finally got around to putting up a presentation I gave on cloud computing entitled, "Cloud Computing": What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters" for Tokyo 2.0 which was held at Super Deluxe in Nishi-Azabu. 

We had a great turnout for the event with over 200 people attending.

It was almost 5 years ago yet a number of the main themes and issues I addressed have come to pass.

You can watch the video,  link to the original or see the full presentation PDF by clicking on the button below.
Cloud Computing: What It Is, What It Isn't, Why it matters
0 Comments

    About

    Career OverDrive™ is your platform for career acceleration and expert advice. Together we'll explore high-performance career development, acceleration, transitions and change, job searching, interviewing and salary negotiations, Psychological Jujutsu™ and office politics and organizational power dynamics.

    Picture

    Archives (by date)

    June 2018
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    March 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    Approval
    Approval Seeking
    Asia
    Audio Guides
    Autonomous Systems
    Autonomous Vehicles
    Career Advice
    Career Advice
    Career Damage
    Career Damage
    Career Overdrive
    Career Overdrive
    Career Overdrive Announcements
    Career Overdrive Announcements
    Career Overdrive Website
    Career Overdrive Website
    Changing Careers
    China
    Coaching Advice
    Coaching Advice
    Communications
    Conferences
    Criticism
    Crush Any Career
    Crush Any Career
    Crush Any Interview
    Crush Any Interview
    Decision Making
    Decision Making
    Deprogramming
    Education
    Energy
    Entrepreneurs
    Entrepreneurship
    Events
    Factory Automation
    Failure
    Favors
    Fire Your Recruiter
    Fire-your-recruiter
    Fortune Cookie Inspiration
    Fortune Cookie Peddlers
    Frameworks
    Future Proof
    Hamster Wheel
    High Impact Resumes
    High Impact Resumes
    High-impact Resumes
    Hope Peddlers
    Humor
    Japan
    Job Candidate
    Job Candidate
    Job Search Lifecycle
    Job Search Lifecycle
    Leadership
    Liberal Arts Degree
    Machine Vision
    Memes
    Mental Chains
    Mental Conditioning
    Mistakes
    Modeling Success
    Modeling Success
    Myths
    Nbt
    Negotiations
    No Box Thinking
    Office Politics
    Opportunity Cost
    Organizational Power
    Passion Peddlers
    Phfc
    Philosophies
    Promotions
    Psychological Jujutsu
    Quotes
    Rituals
    Robots
    Salary Negotiations
    Silicon Valley
    Situational Awareness
    Speaking Conferences
    Speaking Events
    Startups
    Success Modeling
    Success Stories
    Tech Firms
    Tech Startups
    Testimonials
    Time Management
    Tokyo
    Unlearning
    Validation
    Work Life Balance
    Work-life Balance

    RSS Feed

Picture
© Copyright 2007-2022 SiliconEdge™ Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Picture