Tag: CAREER

The Courage to do it Scared

Sometimes, we must go after our goals even when we are scared.

image to represent new year resolutions and planning to implement them, going after your goals even when scared

Weeks into the new year, Deepa felt miserable because she was not able to implement all the big and small New Year resolutions she had made.

Noticing her gloom, the people around her had tried to reassure her:

“It’s okay, it has only been a few weeks, you still have the time to implement your plans.”

“It’s okay, maybe you can start your plans during the Spring season, the actual new year in nature!”

“It’s okay, you can only begin with the small resolutions and then move on to the bigger ones.”

“Yes, take it slow, one day at a time, one resolution at a time…”

Slow, she had taken it, and she had the necessary planning, all done. The only thing to be done was the implementation, and yet something was stopping her.

Varsha, a wise old friend who was also like a mentor had been noticing Deepa’s dejection at her own inability to implement things. Varsha and Deepa lived in the same building, and would often carpool together- their offices were quite nearby and they would often spend their lunch-time together whenever possible.

During one such lunches, they both got into a conversation around Deepa’s new year resolutions. From wanting to eat healthier, to starting her own Youtube channel, Deepa had everything planned out. The planning and the resolutions themselves were quite realistic, so there was really nothing that could prevent Deepa. And as had been mentioned earlier, something was stopping her.

‘I don’t know what is happening Varsha ji. I wake up everyday and look at my post-it notes, my step-by-step planning. But I get scared.’

‘Scared of what dear Deepa?’ Varsha inquired with a gentle expression. She indeed had much love, like an older sister, for Deepa.

‘I am scared of so many big and small things. I am scared, for example, my Youtube channel will not work. Or it might work too well and I will be overwhelmed by it all. I am scared that my resolution to wake up early and get into fitness will result in detection of some new health problem that might prevent me from fulfilling my resolution. And for some resolutions, I am just plain scared that I might fail. Every day I wake up with the hope that today these fears will go away and I will be able to start implementing my resolutions. But the fears don’t seem to be going away.’

‘That’s a lot to be scared of!’ Varsha let out a small chuckle but quickly her expression changed into something Deepa was sort of familiar with; the ‘boss-lady’ expression who got things done and who helped get her employees to new heights. With a firm, resolute expression but with ever more warmth, Varsha said,

‘Deepa, the fears may never go away. You may never stop getting scared. Sometimes, even I get scared. I have my fears too.’

‘Really? Then what do you do when you get scared? How do you make the fear go away?’

Varsha took a deep breath and continued, ‘The fears never go away. Or they go away for some moments and then they come back. They key is to go ahead despite the fears.’

Deepa thought about it for a bit and asked, ‘But what if it’s my instinct that’s preventing something bad happening? A woman’s gut feeling is said to be very strong…’

‘Agreed. But gut feeling will not leave you questioning and anxious; gut feeling doesn’t paralyze you- it leaves you feeling stronger and firmer with your decision to do or not do something. Fear on the other hand leaves you feeling miserable; you feel like a failure and you begin questioning your own capabilities. You seem to be in fear, don’t you think?’

Deepa nodded.

Varsha continued, ‘Yes. Fears are going to be there. Yet you must get up and chase your dreams, big or small. You must not, cannot, wait for fears to subside. I still do some things where my heart beats faster than usual, where I get worried about what lies next, where all sorts of possibilities form in my head. And yet, I go for it. I have planned things. I have prepared. I have done what is expected of me to do- my ‘karma’. Ideally, I shouldn’t be scared but if I am, then so be it. I do what I want and need to do, even if I am scared.’

And with this, Deepa found new courage to go ahead and start with ticking off one new year resolution at a time, with her impeccable planning. For some of those, she was scared. But she went ahead, anyway, scared.

Team UHR wishes everyone a very happy new year. May the year bless us with courage to implement our plans, and face our fears with the courage to go for what we want, even if it is scary. There is courage in doing it scared.

Comparison: Not Always a Thief of Joy

image to show good comparison

Ayaan was at a mental space where a lot of us may have been from time to time:

He was having a good day at office. He had been happy with how a team meeting had gone by, and how the next set of objectives was looking like. That good day though was soon engulfed by a gloom. Why? In one of the objectives listed out, he was supposed to have his general manager get in touch with the general manager of one of the client companies he was working with. Who was the general manager of this client company? His own classmate!

He and this classmate had started out together. They had studied from the same university, and had the same certifications. So how was it that the classmate had reached a higher post before him? How was it that Ayaan reported to a general manager, and this classmate himself had become the general manager?

Ayaan was wracking his brain, deep into comparison: ‘How did this classmate’s career progressed more than mine even though we started out at the same time?’ ‘How much does he earn, I wonder?’ ‘Why did he get this opportunity, and how come I did not? How unlucky for me!’ ‘What if I had done that one other course instead of…?’ and so on.

All kinds hows and whys and what ifs were playing in Ayaan’s mind.

They say comparison is the thief of joy.

But is it so that we should never undertake any kind of comparison? After all, sometimes, it is the pressure to excel that motivates us to work harder. It is not a good idea to always be in a bubble, too comfortable in one’s life- that can lead to a lack of growth and wasted potential. Some comparison, some challenge, some striving for getting better is needed.

As James Clear, writer of the book ‘Atomic Habit’ says, comparison of the wrong things is the thief of joy. If one compares the wrong things, it can make one miserable. But if one compares the right things, and actually embraces the challenge to ‘win’ in the comparison at some point, it can lead to growth and improvement.

Ayaan is miserable because he compared the big things, the ‘wrong’ things like career trajectory, income, opportunities got and luck found.

What he can do instead is compare the little things. Little things such as: ‘What would be the classmate’s networking style that led him to this opportunity?’ ‘How does the classmate maintain his composure in such a high-pressure job?’ ‘What does his classmate do when it comes to task and time management?’ ‘What sort of strategies does he use which I can learn from?’

And so on.

Comparing the little things, the right things means comparing the concrete things. Things one can actually understand and learn from. Things which one can actually implement, and hone based on one’s own requirements and needs. Things which we can take under our control. Things which are not governed by luck and one’s life situation.

So yes, comparison of the wrong things is the thief of joy. Comparison of the right things can be fuel for our growth.

The Power of Small Achievements to get your ‘Big Break’

We often wait for a ‘big break’ to happen to us. Actually, we make the ‘big break’ happen with our ‘small achievements’. Read on.

image with working professionals celebrating small wins for the big break

Bindiya had joined the company around two years ago, and so far, she felt she had not achieved what she wanted to achieve. She had big dreams- she wanted a cabin of her own, a business card and an email signature she can be proud about. But so far, all she had to boast was that she was a junior associate. In other words, according to her, nothing much had been ‘achieved’.

Divya, a senior colleague and a friend of Bindiya’s walked in and saw the latter’s cheerless visage. As she asked, Bindiya confided how she had been feeling like a failure since the past year and a half since it wasn’t the career graph she had been expecting. She had been in the workforce for the past four years or so and two years with the company, and felt she hadn’t had any progress.

‘Is it so? Have you had no progress at all? Think about it. I remember a few meetings you attended in this company in your first year. You were quiet, and barely seemed to be handling the information that had been thrown at you.

Now look at you! Remember the meeting we had last week? You were asking great questions, and at one point, you also offered to mentor the interns. Isn’t that progress?’

Bindiya’s mood lightened up a little. But she still felt that this was just a random glimmer in an otherwise lacklustre career. She said, ‘Yes, but I don’t feel like this is a very significant achievement…’

‘Is it so?’ Divya quipped. ‘Remember the very first report you drafted? You were asked to make so many corrections. Now, most of your reports get the approval, and it is almost given that since you have made the report, it is going to be a job well done!’

Bindiya smiled at Divya’s optimism and countered it with…well, her pessimism, saying, ‘These little achievements are fine. I am grateful that I have learned so much over these couple of years, but I do not see the point of these small successes. I need a big break. Something that actually changes things…’

Divya at this point shared a story, ‘You know our boss, how did he start his career? He was a personal assistant to the head of another company. This wasn’t a job that many considered great. But he nevertheless continued to do his job of an assistant well, and learnt all that he could.

‘By ‘all that he could’, I mean every little thing. Just like you, he improved over the years his networking skills through the meetings he attended with his boss, which he wasn’t even a major part of for many years. He continuously found smart ways to do his job as an assistant as efficiently as was possible for him. He learnt to take phenomenal minutes of meetings which over the years gave him a keen eye for small details and a meticulous way of doing things. He was the first one the interns talked to when they had to approach the boss, and eventually, he developed a way of creating rapports with new recruits. One day, his boss himself referred him to this company for the role of a junior manager, and now he is the boss since a couple of years!’

Bindiya was looking at Divya wide-eyed. ‘Really?’

‘Of course!’ Divya continued, ‘I am telling you this story because I want you to understand that life is made up of small achievements, that can eventually lead you to the ‘big break’ that you are talking about. You make the ‘big breaks’ happen through your small achievements; the big breaks don’t simply happen to you.

‘Celebrate your ‘small breaks’. Celebrate how you have improved over the years. Keep learning, just keep learning. Keep finding ways to do your present job well. We often underappreciate the small cumulative improvements we make with things. Celebrate them, learn from them, because eventually, they will only help us with our big break, and to make good use of our big break from all that we have learned.’

Bindiya finally felt her mood lift, and found a new dose of motivation to keep doing her work efficiently.

Life is made up of small achievements that could lead to the big break that we all want.

The point is to:

  • Learn from your small breaks and achievements.
  • Remember the cumulative power of regular small achievements.
  • Remember that we stagnate only if we let ourselves stagnate- we can learn even from the smallest of tasks if we develop that famous growth mind-set we all must have heard of. Because what is growth mindset, if not developing a mentality to constantly learn?
  • Do our job well, and do not pore on the designation and the status wars that come with it. What our designation is, we must do full justice to it.

Eventually, the small achievements take you to the moment that will give the big break. Not only that, the lessons you learn from small achievements could be applied lifelong, even with your big break!

Stories, Setbacks and Success: All About Writing a Compelling Career Narrative

‘Stories’ dominate the way we tell others about ourselves. We select the important events of our day when someone asks us how our day was. We have a story about our career trajectory, past and future, planned in our heads, so when an interviewer asks us our plan for the next five years, we have the answer; when the interviewer asks why we left our older place of employment, or why they should hire us, we have an answer ready. We select the crucial updates from our careers and add those to the ‘stories’ in our resumes and interviews, as we have written in an earlier article, as a way of personal branding.

Storytelling in the professional world gets a whole new dimension with technology and the various online platforms: the way we write our LinkedIn introduction, the kind of posts we put up and choose to share tell one story. The website of a company, its mission statement, its brand image is the story told by the company about itself.

A few questions are likely to come up:

  • Why should we plan ahead instead of relying on our spontaneity?
  • How much should one include in the story?
  • Should one stick to the good parts only, or should one also include the setbacks?
  • Is it risky to add our setbacks in our story?  

Read on, as we attempt to answer these questions.

The Compelling Power:

As Sharon Elber writing for Workbloom points out a compelling story, or narrative will help you write a compelling resume and cover letter. Recruiters may not have much time to spend in reviewing your application materials, and hence, a powerful narrative will help in making sure that your resume and cover letter quickly convey a clear picture of your qualifications as well your overarching career goals.

Of course, it is unlikely that someone will directly ask you “what is your career story?’ in a job interview. Having a career narrative in your head will help in answering similar to it or indirect questions. Questions like:

  • Why should we hire you?
  • Why are you a good fit for this position?

It is also a great way to network as well as gaining some self-awareness about what you really want from your career. How?

Networking: As Elber points out, having a loose script of your career story prepared in your head is a great, confident way to start a conversation with new people, draw attention to your values, personal brand, ambitions in an easy-going way.

Self-awareness: Giving a narrative to your career will force you to think as to how the journey has been, and how you would want it to be in the near and distant future. This vision will in turn force you to take proactive steps rather than waiting for the next “low hanging opportunity”.

Thus, a career story can tell not just about the important events of your career so far, but can also include a vision of your dream job, and how your career so far is a series of steps towards it.

The Tricky Question:

But anyone’s career can’t possibly have everything going perfectly for them, where every step was a step towards their dream jobs. We all fail, we all suffer setbacks, we all deal with uncertain situations that lead to sometimes unpleasant changes in our life, affecting our jobs. We can find ourselves faced with questions like:

  • Is it a good idea to include the ‘bad’ parts in your story?
  • How should one include the setbacks?

Owning It up: The answer to the first one is yes. We do need to include the bad parts. It’s a matter of owning up your story as well as being honest. As one user in Mindtools’ Twitter chat mentioned about whether adding setbacks in your story increases or decreases your vulnerability, “Having your story in the open and not covering it up means some will take advantage when they can.  But you are also stronger because you already know the details.”

Inspiring others: Including the setbacks could also be a matter of inspiring others. Yolande Conradie writing for Mindtools says, “After years of working with people, I’ve learned that sharing parts of my story can be the lifeline someone else needs. Being brave and vulnerable enough to own your story, and courageous enough to change, can inspire and encourage others to do the same.”

Thus, it’s a matter of honesty as well as a way to make your story even more compelling and inspiring where you own up the setbacks.

The answer to the second question, closely linked with the first: How does one include setbacks, sudden changes, long gaps and such ‘issues’ into their narrative? Companies will need to know why and how your skills are still relevant, and why your recent lack of experience doesn’t make you any less of a team-member

Framing It: The key lies in how you frame the narrative. The gap or shift should be framed such that it appears as “a part of your journey that led you to where you are now and where you are going.” For example, did raising kids made you realise your passion for teaching? Did helping out a colleague to find a good fit for a position make you realise your talent for recruitment, and thus your decision to change directions? Such a framing which gives a sense that your setbacks too were steps that led you to some growth or new vision.

Thinking about your career in terms of a story is thus likely to help one and all gain perspective. It can enhance the quality of one’s interviews, networking and other professional interactions. Owning up your story, with all its good and bad aspects can not only make your narrative compelling and interesting, but it helps you stand out from the overly positive and unrealistic ones. It rids us from the vulnerability that comes with hiding. Any success story is likely to include successes as well as setbacks. As academician and author Bene Brown writes:

When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.

The Haunting No Recruiter Likes

 Ghosting_Article jpeg

Imagine someone agreed to come visit your house. You prepare delicious food for them, change your routine for the day, tell your family members about them, and even they tweak their routines a bit. The guest does not show up. You try to call them up, leave messages but there is no reply of any sort. You get worried, anxious, frustrated and somewhat angry at the same time. This, in a nutshell, is ‘ghosting’ in a domestic terminology.

 Now imagine something like this happening in a professional setting. Whether a recruiter believes in ghosts or not, chances are he or she would definitely encounter the phenomenon of ghosting. A ‘ghost’ is any candidate who commits and then disappears often cutting off all contact abruptly.

 Ghosting could occur at any stage. A candidate may agree to show up for interview but when the day of the interview comes, there is no sign.

 A candidate may show up for the interview, ace it, cheerfully agree to all the conditions, and then doesn’t show up on the day of joining the company. Some candidates even clear the formalities and paperwork. Even health check-ups are cleared wherever there’s a requirement. And still there are chances that the candidate just won’t show up at the job. There have been instances when flight tickets were booked by candidates but even those weren’t used!

 Recruiters all over the world would have stories to tell when they received calls from various companies just ‘ghosted’ by the candidates the recruiters had roped in. Or when they got worried about a candidate’s health and safety.

Companies often have to resort to guesswork when ‘ghosting’ takes place. Calls, messages go unreturned. Sometimes even contact numbers are changed, or phones are switched off. Emails go unanswered. Instead of formally quitting, the candidate just stops showing up at the job.

Trends:

Trends are changing in job applying processes. At one point in time, people often used to covet a particular job. At other times, there was also a trend to scan the ‘Classified’ sections of newspapers and apply for a couple of jobs which interested the candidate. Chances are, not all of them would lead to interview call-ups.

Moreover, at one point, companies used to ‘ghost’ candidates after interviews. Only those who progressed to the next round were communicated about the later processes. But now, things have reversed.

Many people apply at multiple places just for the sake of applying. Each new offer is seen as a potential step up, a better opportunity. The scanning process never stops, it seems.

Ghosting is a phenomenon which most of us engage in various aspects of our lives. Things have to be “understood.” People in general would like to avoid confrontations, awkwardness and conflict, and saying ‘no’ or formally quitting could very well lead to all of that. But what makes ghosting at a professional level a hot button topic is the signing of a contract, which entails a commitment. Ghosting after committing is the issue. When a candidate leaves without a formal notice the recruitment process has to then be started all over again, with the company and the recruiters bearing all the costs.

 ‘No’ Problem:

It’s not wrong to apply at multiple places. Multiple job offers are not a bad thing. And it’s only logical that candidates cannot accept all the job offers they get.

(Emergencies and crises come unannounced, and those are exceptions to the case. )

 How to go about with the need to reply in the negative is a huge task for some, especially those who are more on the socially awkward side.

And chances are, candidates have to put up their best behaviour in all circumstances. How to say ‘no’ then, without appearing rude or unprofessional is the question. And someone has to be told ‘No.’

That precisely is the problem: candidates don’t even say no.

An absence of response has come to be equated with saying ‘No.’ An absence of response has come to be considered a response in itself.

 What is the answer here then? How to go about as not to ‘ghost’ recruiters?

 As basic as it can get: communicate.  Whatever is the scenario, say so. If you are probably going to say no, make it clear. If you need to drop out for some reason midway through the process, talk about it, no matter how awkward the conversation might be.

A moment of awkwardness on an interpersonal level can often save hours of anxiety and frustration on an official level.