July 30, 2007 2:05
I don't date my sources
...because I'm married. But I did have this running fantasy about interviewing Ichiro Suzuki for a story, during which he would fall madly in love and propose. I would of course have to quit the noble calling of journalism to manage his vast fortune and to raise our many little Ichiros. We would be the Posh and Becks of Japan. Maybe I'd even get a boob job.
My imaginary romance with a sports star might raise some eyebrows at TIME, particularly if sports were my beat. But covering baseball is a tea party compared to the contact sport of political reporting, and reporters frisk with politicians all the time. Check out this hilarious story by Laura Castaneda called "Romancing the Source" in the L.A. Times. It was A.M. Rosenthal of the New York Times who said, "I don't care if my reporters are sleeping with elephants, so long as they aren't covering the circus."
But apparently that most basic of journalistic rules was lost on Mirthala Salinas, who remains on unpaid leave while the Spanish-language television network Telemundo decides her fate for dating Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa while she covered him as a political reporter.
Before we rush to judgment, Castaneda points out Salinas is hardly alone:
• Matt Cooper, then Newsweek's deputy bureau chief in Washington, married Mandy Grunwald, a longtime media advisor for the Clintons, in 1997. He wrote about presidential politics while they dated. Today, he is the Washington editor for Portfolio magazine, and she is the chief ad strategist for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.
• Christiane Amanpour, CNN's chief international correspondent, began dating James Rubin, assistant secretary of State for public affairs, in 1997. They wed the following year. While she continued to cover international events, he kept his job as a spinmeister for the State Department. She remains CNN's chief international correspondent, based in London, and he is a freelance news commentator and analyst.• Andrea Mitchell, NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent, dated Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for 12 years before marrying him in 1997. Although she never reported on Greenspan, he was widely considered one of the most powerful people in Washington. She is still with NBC, and he retired from the Fed last year.
• Jack Welch, General Electric chairman, and Suzy Wetlaufer, editor of the Harvard Business Review, became romantically involved, although he was married, in 2002 after she interviewed him for a story. They wed in 2004. Today they co-write a column for Business Week magazine.
• Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell and television news reporter/anchor Marion Brooks had a four-year relationship during the mid-1990s. She is now an anchor for an NBC affiliate in Chicago, and he was convicted of tax evasion in 2006 and sentenced to 30 months in prison. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some of Brooks' co-workers avoided her when working on stories about City Hall, fearing she would tip off Campbell.
• New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial and CBS television reporter Michelle Miller married in 1999. Although they met at a news conference, she didn't cover him after they became involved. Today, she is a CBS network news correspondent based in New York, and he is president of the National Urban League.
• Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), and Philadelphia news anchor Renee Chenault married in 2001. She is still with the local NBC station and continued anchoring the news while Fattah ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Philadelphia.
• Pulitzer Prize-winning Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Connie Shultz married Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) in 2004. She still writes for the newspaper. However, she was widely lauded for taking a leave of absence when he launched his successful bid for the U.S. Senate last year.
• In Dallas, television reporter Sarah Dodd and Police Chief David Kunkle married in 2006. Because she is a City Hall reporter, cops are technically off her beat. Both still have the same jobs.
July 30, 2007 10:56
10 steps for women going back to work
I checked out a new web site called YourOnRamp.com. It's flawed, but of potential use to women who have left the workforce and are attempting a comeback. I say women because the site is clearly targeted to moms, despite the fact that more and more men are making similar choices. Their loss: gentlemen readers, perhaps a market opportunity?
That's one gripe. Another: its perpetuation of the term "on-ramp," popularized by Sylvia Ann Hewlett and her recent book, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps. It refers to women who have taken the off ramp from the career highway at exit number Mom, and who attempt to take the on ramp back to the fast lane. It's a hackneyed and clunky term that paints people who work for pay as the only ones going anywhere. Bull.
According to the release the company sent me, "approximately 37% of highly qualified women voluntarily leave their careers for some period of time, and 58% of those women take a 'scenic route' (a flexible or reduced-hour option). Among those who off-ramp, however, the overwhelming majority (93%) want to return, but face challenges including a loss of confidence, a neglected network, outdated skills, and confusion about how to balance work and life."
The site is relatively well designed, though the dark grey background and white type made my eyes blink after a while. The networking channel is a little tough to figure out; you'd have to commit some time to signing up and building contacts, and for this I find LinkedIn a far better option (read my tricks for using that network for professionals here).
The job board isn't industry specific, though there are ways to search; however, the search function isn't remotely as sophisticated as some of the more established ones such as Vault.com or TheLadders. Being that the postings ostensibly target women returning to the workforce, however, they could become a valuable collection of family-friendly employers.
The blogs are supposedly a main feature of this site. It appears that anyone can join in, which might explain the erratic quality. Check out this bizarre posting about Italian food; I'm not sure the author is a native speaker of English (I'm not, either, but I watch a lot of TV).
The site also features articles on women and careers. Here's a nice one about an ad exec turned cosmetics entrepreneur by Jessica Dickler. But she's identified as a CNNMoney.com staff writer, so perhaps the article isn't original to the site; it's not clear.
YourOnRamp.com's raison d'etre is embodied in a 10 step plan for women planning to get back into the workforce. It's pretty cheerleady and basic; even the most diaper-addled mom remembers she needs a dang cover letter. But maybe that's the point of this whole site: to rah-rah women preparing to join the paid-to-work society again. Lord knows, working moms need all the support we can get.
1. Clear the decks! Deliberately set aside time and space where you can focus without the multitude of interruptions that often cloud your days (If you are like us!). Spend focused time every day on YourOnRamp "project." That means dodging the email "black hole," saying "no" to volunteer requests that do not contribute to your effort, and outsourcing non essential chores.
2. Gather the right tools. If you don't have a Blackberry or the equivalent, now is the time to invest in one. Computer, DSL, email, voicemail, text messaging, these are basic musts! You want to be organized, efficient and up to date on the technology that is now ubiquitous in the workplace. For online questions, answers and tools visit our business/technology section.3. Devote time to complete a Self Assessment. This is often the deal stopper, don't let it trip you up! This is a valuable opportunity to recognize what you enjoy doing and when you feel the most successful and fulfilled. We have great tools to help you understand yourself, how you define a balanced life and where you will best contribute.
4. Develop an Elevator Pitch. This is your 1-2 minute description of your self and your job objective (if you have one). It is an essential tool for networking.
5. Build a Network. This is the most important aspect of your onramp effort. Your chances of getting a job are much better when you know someone at the company. YourOnRamp is here to help you build your network in all areas of your life. Start now! A complete personal profile will help friends and colleagues find you with ideas and new connections.
6. Get Educated. Research ideas, industries, companies, people, you name it, there is unlimited information available with a few key strokes. At YourOnRamp, we are working hard to make sure you are current and know where to go for answers. The newsroom, the library, our blog and discuss topics are all designed to help you get up to speed.
7. Compile your Resume. Need help presenting your work and volunteer experiences in a meaningful and effective way? We can help. You should also compile a list of references. See how here.
8. Craft Cover Letters. Yes, you need them! They go hand in hand with your resume and are an essential communication tool, persuasively matching your prior experience to your future career goals.
9. Prepare for Interviews. Preparation is the key to successful interviewing. What questions will I need to answer? How should I explain my time away from the workplace? What if my skills are outdated? Look the part. Ditch the 1980's Brooks Brothers suit and update your wardrobe. We can help you gain the confidence you need to address these basic questions and more.
10. Ask for the Order. Email a prompt thank you highlighting your interest and qualifications for the job. If you want the job, ask for it and tell them why you're the one for the job. Don't be shy.
July 26, 2007 9:19
Lousy boss? Vent, then act
I don't have a bad boss right now, but if I did, I sure as heck wouldn't blog about it on my employer's web site. I could, however--insert image of me with my pinkie at my mouth--crab about him or her anonymously on the AFL-CIO Bad Boss web contest. Although from the first entry I read, already I can tell I can't beat these stories:
My boss would call me on the phone and want me to talk dirty to him. Or he would call me into his office and he would be sitting naked at his desk...
Holy sashimi. You can win a weeklong vacation for telling the best horror story. Maybe working for that @#$$%^ will finally pay off.
If you're still toiling under that @#$%$^, here are some ideas from Karen Salmansohn, a former ad exec, via the HuffingtonPost (via Alternet):
1. Have an honest, brave talk -- with yourself -- not your boss! Fearlessly look at your behavior. Are you inspiring wrath or disrespect? If not, proceed onward.2. Book your boss for their bad behavior. Get a journal and write a cathartic list of all the bad things your boss did/does -- and how each misdeed impacted your performance -- and others.
3. Rank your list from top outright evil to lesser plain ol' annoying. Pick the top three misdeeds and develop positive, helpful solutions. Edit out sarcasm.
4. Bring your "Problems/Solutions List" to trusted friends and colleagues. Discuss. Edit.
5. Find a "Mentor Boss" to help problem-solve your "Tormentor Boss." In every company there's at least one wise and non-gossip-oriented supervisor who understands company's needs and culture. Revaluate your "P/S List" with them. Edit again.
6. Schedule a meeting with your boss. Consider how there's "SAFETY IN NUMBERS" -- as long as added people you bring with you are "safe" (ie: able to discuss problems in a warm spirit -- not as a "group lynching.") By uniting with trusted, emotionally-balanced colleagues, your presented "P/S list" will have more impact on your boss.
7. Begin your talk by acknowledging how you're sure your boss is completely unaware of his/her actions -- and how you hope this meeting will be positive for all involved. Give your boss a typed-up copy of your "P/S List." Your boss will pay more attention knowing your talk is on documented official record.
8. Don't leave until everyone has appropriate expectations -- and a measurable way to gauge change.
9. Only as an extreme last resort should you report your boss to his/her supervisor or HR. Recognize if you do, you'll run the risk of being pegged a trouble-maker -- attracting new stresses.
July 25, 2007 11:59
Boss, don't tell me how to vote
...is what some workers wish they could say to their managers. According to a survey released today and conducted in May and June 2007 by Harris Interactive for The Marlin Company, which calls itself "The Workplace Communications Experts,"
nearly one out of four (24%) U.S. workers believe their top managers are openly expressing their political preferences at work. Those age 18 to 34 were more likely (33%) to say they have managers who made it clear which political candidates they preferred, compared to 16% of those age 50 or older.
Those results imply that the younger the worker, the stronger the pressure placed upon them to vote a certain way. Regardless of age, many don't like it.
The survey showed that political talk at work can make some employees uncomfortable. Over a quarter (26%) of those polled said they do not fit in with their company's culture in terms of politics. However, men were more likely to say they fit in the company culture, with 75% indicating so, compared to 64% of women.
Now, at my workplace, politics drives the daily morning meetings--because that's what we cover. Still, there's been some discussion in the past about journalists expressing their personal political views and how that affects coverage. If you're a columnist like Joe Klein, you are of course expected to share your ideology, not just with the staff but with the readership. You either agree or you don't, but that's his job. But I'd feel weird if Rick Stengel, TIME's editor, wore a Romney '08 button on his lapel. He and Mitt do bear a slight resemblance, but that's another story.
Young people are more likely to talk politics at work:
The survey found generational differences between younger and older workers regarding talking politics at work. Younger employees (age 18 to 34) were more likely to be comfortable sharing their political views (76%), compared to 64% of those age 50 or older. Younger employees were also more likely (84%) than older workers (68%) to say they were comfortable telling their boss which candidates they support.
In an era when we barf out our opinions on blogs, reminisce over college hook-ups on MySpace and clamor for selection on the latest reality show, I suppose it's no stretch that we're increasingly sharing our political leanings in the workplace. It's one thing if you're a working stiff ripping on Hillary's oratory or Rudy's hair. But if you're the boss, shut it. Go ahead and plump up McCain's sorry coffers if you've got the inclination and the dough. Just don't pressure us underlings to follow suit.
Jon Stewart on why young people are the perfect--or only--viewer demographic to "get" the CNN/YouTube debates the other night:
July 24, 2007 11:05
Reader book review! ScreamFree Parenting Works
When I started this blog back in November 2006, I had little sense of what it would yield me, career-wise. Yeah, yeah, a blog is about building a community and all that. But what kind of community could a daily jot about the workplace beget?
In the shadow of my colleagues blogging about presidential politics and American Idol, my wee little corner of the TIME.com blogorama went little noticed. Over the course of a few months, though, I began to notice some repeat readers. One was LaDawn Clare-Panton, a working mom and transplanted Yank living in England (her readership gives me trans-Atlantic diversity on my Sitemeter map). Her comments were sometimes thoughtful, sometimes bitchy, sometimes LOL funny, always regular. If she worked in your office, she'd be your favorite colleague, the one to whom you gripe about your boss, after which she'd help you dream up some ballsy and hysterical way to kill him.
Seriously, LaDawn posts regularly in her own blog from the POV of a working mom and broad abroad. In between raising her two kids, managing a household and holding down an executive job, she's whipped up this (crotchety and hilarious) book review exclusively for WiP. Ain't we lucky. Read on.
ScreamFree Parenting
Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool
By Hal Edward Runkel
Reviewed by LaDawn Clare-Panton
When I agreed to review this book, it was only because the book I really wanted to read was already spoken for. And I have 2 children (6 and 3.5 years old). And I find myself screaming at them far too often. If I could find a way to eliminate screaming from our household this would be a good thing so I was game.
After reading the book, have I been able to eliminate screaming from the house? Sort of. I’ve certainly reduced my screaming. I’m not sure how much of this is because of the book or because I’m just consciously focusing on how much I scream and thus doing it less.
I hate books that start with “How to Read this Book” introductions. I know how to read. Learned that at age 5, thank you very much. So, let’s just say we didn’t get off to a great start.
During the first chapter, the author kept repeating himself. And telling you he was repeating himself, like we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves. I’m sure he was doing it to emphasise a certain point he was trying to make, but I’m not that stupid that I wouldn’t get it if you didn’t say it to me twice.
Finally, I kept reading about all the things this book was going to tell me. Top tip here: just get on and tell me. I’m a busy person. Don’t waste my time (and trees) bulking up the book by telling me all the things you are going to tell me and then tell me. Just tell me.
And the acknowledgements are 7 pages long. Are you kidding me?
If I hadn’t promised to write a review of this book I probably would have abandoned the book at this point.
I’m glad I didn’t. If you can look beyond the aforementioned annoying bits, there are some good techniques. The book is aligned with the general parenting philosophies that my husband and I believe. We disagree on a lot but we both agree that we are raising adults. We don’t want our children living with us beyond their 18th birthday. We want them to be responsible, compassionate, contributing, and content citizens of the world. This book seems to have the same goal.
There is an excellent visualisation exercise about the future and what you want their life, your life, and your relationship with your children to look like. It was a good thing to do. I wrote it down and it will be interesting to revisit this as they grown older.
Ultimately, most of the advice parents of toddlers will find difficult to implement. Action and consequence just isn’t a big motivator yet. The techniques discussed should work really well for the 5-12 year age group.
The challenges facing the 13 and older group are many, and if you haven’t already instilled some of these principles it will be difficult to suddenly change course. I agree though that yelling at this age group isn’t going to work either, so you might as well give these suggestions a shot.
Everything Runkel suggests is focused on changing the behaviour of the parents. We all know you can’t change someone else. You can only change yourself. This book emphasizes this point and puts the responsibility for not yelling well and squarely on the shoulders of the parents.
It’s been about a week since I’ve finished the book. I’m trying to convince my husband that he needs to read it too. I’m finding the fact that I focus on not yelling is in and of itself enough to stop the yelling. And my children are grasping the consequences of their actions more. If you find too much yelling going on in your home I recommend you read it as well. It doesn’t take long to get through. I think it took me all of about 6 hours in total. And that includes reading the annoying bits.
July 24, 2007 9:28
Lessons from the Democratic debate, courtesy of Hillary
Case Study A on how working women can publicly and skillfully sing their own praises: I submit to you Sen. Hillary Clinton's performance in last night's CNN/YouTube debate among Democratic presidential candidates.
Time after time, she managed to pepper her responses with phrases like, "I have done tremendous work on this..." "This is what I have done..." "I led the legislation on..." And, to my ears, anyway, she didn't sound like the braying blowhards on her right and left.
Case Study B on how women can deflect a rude comment: I submit to you Sen. Clinton's response to John Edwards, of all people, who insulted her fashion sense. In what Sen. Joe Biden rightfully called a "ridiculous exercise," each candidate was asked by moderator Anderson Cooper to say what they liked best and least about the person on their left. Edwards turned to Clinton and said, "Well, I don't know about that coat."
Clinton was wearing a bright pink quilted jacket. I personally thought it was a smart choice, making her both stand out among her unanimously dark suited opponents and appear attractive and womanly. But did Clinton look pained or hurt? Nope. She laughed. And Edwards stupidly gave Sen. Barack Obama a lay-up by giving him a chance to look gentlemanly while complimenting the garment (and correctly referring to it as a jacket, not a coat). The remark made Edwards look like an ass, and I hope his wife gave him a good smack upside the head afterward.
Check out this clip from the debates, in which the voter asks Obama and Clinton to address charges they are not black enough or feminine enough (respectively, of course). Clinton starts talking from the 1:45 minute mark. Clinton makes a clear and strong case for why she's proud to be a woman running in the race, even throwing in a bold conclusion: "...and when I'm inaugurated..." Edwards chimes in to respond to remarks made by his wife Elizabeth to Salon this week that he would be a better president for women's causes than Clinton. Then Clinton caps it with a pithy kicker: "Isn't it great that we're up here arguing who would be better for women?"
Inclusive horn-tootin'. I like that.
July 23, 2007 9:58
Why I'm still a Catholic
I've got a book by that title on my nightstand. I borrowed it from my church's library about a year ago. The writing is erratic--it's a compilation of essays-slash-testimonies by famous Catholics like Maria Shriver--and I'm find I'm resisting it for literary and psychological reasons.
There's another book I'd like to read: Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great. My friend Gerry, another fallen Catholic, recommends it highly on GoodReads (if you haven't already, check this site out; it's like crack for book lovers).
As you may have read this week in the back-page essay in TIME, I'm struggling with my faith. And, as I promised in last Friday's post, I attended church for the first time in months yesterday. I felt compelled to go not out of feelings of remorse, nor because I have resolved any of my deep and baffling issues with Catholicism. I went because I am spiritually exhausted from all this cogitating and needed a place of respite.
My essay was in the main a complaint about the content of the sermons in churches I have attended over the years. The first church we attended when we first moved to our New Jersey town was populated by an aging, mostly Italian and Irish congregation. That was where the priest pulled out a rambling homily about a baby left in a Dumpster to be devoured by red ants that somehow advocated against laws allowing abortion. I didn't walk out, but I resolved I'd never go back to that particular parish.
The former pastor at my current church loved to expound upon his movie viewings in his sermons. I can't decide what bugged me more: the introduction of pop culture during a discussion of the Gospel, or his stunningly bad taste in films. In retrospect, I realize he probably had to tailor his movie mentions to a PG audience. But in doing so he lost the attention of at least one adult parishioner.
That priest is gone now. This week's Gospel reading was about the sisters Martha and Mary, who welcome Jesus into their home. Martha gets ticked off because she's doing all the hostessing work while Mary chooses to ogle Jesus by his feet. But when Martha complains, Jesus kind of scolds her, telling her she's got "much anxiety" and that Mary is the one who chose the right thing.
I can relate to Martha. I'm a nervous hostess, fussing about the mess and worrying over the oven so that others may relax and enjoy the company. The homily could easily have taken Martha to task for focusing on the little things while her sister knew the importance of hanging with the big guy. Instead, the father praised Martha. Her service was just as vital to making her guest comfortable as was her sister's attentive listening, he said. Though most of us search for God in the extraordinary (the Virgin Mary in a meatloaf, say), we ought instead assume his presence in the ordinary (the partaking of the meatloaf as a family, say).
In my essay, I advocate a return to Latin Mass because too often I don't like what I hear in English. My point was that I attend Mass for reasons aside from hearing the priest's or the Vatican's political views, which in my experience are too often shared from the pulpit. When I sit through moving and thought-provoking homilies like I did yesterday, though, I do on occasion appreciate the value of a homily in the vernacular.
(To address you Catholic scholars out there: yes, I have read that though the Tridentine Mass is said/sung in Latin, the homily may be said in the local tongue. However, I also understand that the homily in those cases typically consists of a vernacular reading of the Gospel along with marriage and other announcements. And my older Catholic friends reminisce of Latin Masses conducted in 20 minute flat for the regular lack of a homily. Go ahead and correct me in the comments.)
As I said, I still suffer many misgivings about my faith, and I fret over the hypocrisy of attending Mass as I work these out. In response, my friend and colleague Amy reminded me of an Andrew Sullivan piece in TIME a few years ago. In it he wrote:
There's a line in a Leonard Cohen song that has always stayed with me. It kept me going in a bleak moment in my life, when I thought, as we all sometimes do, that I couldn't see how good could come out of the dreck I had turned my life into. "Forget your perfect offering," Cohen advises. "There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
I'm waiting for my light.
July 20, 2007 2:08
I'm going to church this weekend
I haven't said confession in years, but I may have to for writing this essay in this week's magazine. My regular friends on this site will recognize its origins in a post of the same subject. I'm coming to realize having a blog is like having a therapist: you're compelled to barf out your half-formed opinions on things, and suddenly they take on a life of their own. Bless me, Father, for I have barfed.
July 20, 2007 12:00
The wealth gap and the $60,000 mattress
Is anyone else a little wigged out at the gross displays of wealth among Americans recently?
Just over the past week, my local paper, The New York Times, published two consumer lifestyle articles featuring ridiculously expensive items: $60,000 mattresses and $225,000 parking spots.
Then there's this piece about what portion of the country's wealth is held by individuals. My husband commented on the enormity of Rockefeller's wealth back in the 1930s: 1.4% of GDP. In comparison, Bill Gates' percentage--less than half a percentage point--seems almost reasonable, until you consider how much the country's wealth has grown in that time.
New research says the rich are just better connected than we are. (And this is news?) The Millionaire Zone finds from its studies of 500 millionaires that:
When asked "What had an impact on your financial success," millionaires cited the following as having "some" or a "significant" impact: business contacts/relationships (50%), family/friends (46.2%), work/co-workers (45.1%) and professional organizations (22.1%) to their alma mater/college (27.9%), physical condition/health club (23.1%), spiritual center (19.3%), a non-profit (15.4%), neighbors (13.5%), health care providers (11.5%), and local government (9.7%).
It's somewhat mollifying to know that the richest of us are giving more to charity than ever before. But the Wall Street Journal doesn't see it that way. In an article titled "The Rich Are Duller," the Journal writes:
If the 1980s created yuppies (young urban professionals) and the 1990s brought us bobos (bourgeois bohemians), the 2000s may be giving rise to a new kind of elite: yawns.
Yawns are "young and wealthy but normal." They are men and women in their 30s and 40s who have become multimillionaires and billionaires during the wealth boom of the past decade. Yet rather than spending their money on yachts, boats and jets, yawns live modestly and spend most of their money on philanthropy. In stark contrast to the outsized titans of the Gilded Age and the slicked-back Gordon Gekkos of the 1980s, yawns are notable for their extraordinary dullness.
A caption reads: "Rich but rumpled: Bill Gates is the patron saint of 'Yawns.'"
Let me point out that that the Times covered the beds and parking spots without any apparent irony. Let me also point out that both the Times and the WSJ has reporters dedicated to covering the new "wealth" beat. So these reporters and editors apparently decided stupidly expensive mattresses were lifestyle stories, while rich philanthropists belonged on the funny pages? Shouldn't we be making fun of people who buy bedding that costs more than many a down payment on a house--not those who'd give that money to Doctors Without Borders? With the chasm between rich and poor ever widening in this country and around the world, the wealthiest of us do deserve serious news attention. But we reporters have some responsibility in deciding how to cover their lives and earnings. Don't we?
July 19, 2007 10:20
Does university prestige matter in hiring?
No, say half of CFOs. Yes, say half of CFOs.
Great. Thanks for settling that for us.
A survey released this week by staffing company Accountemps posed this question to CFOs. It focused on the hiring of finance majors, but we might infer how hiring executives view the question for the general populace. When CFOs were asked how important the prestige of the university was when making hiring choices,
the results were split -- 49% said “not important at all” while 51% said it was “somewhat or very important.”
The chairman of Accountemps adds:
“Because many entry-level candidates have little professional experience, hiring managers often consider non-work-related factors, such as the quality of the applicant’s formal education,” said Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps and author of Human Resources Kit For Dummies. “But learning extends beyond the classroom -- valuable skills and knowledge also are gained through extracurricular activities, internships and jobs held during college.”“Employers should avoid letting a single factor, such as where an applicant went to school or which internships he or she completed, carry disproportionate weight in the evaluation process,” said Messmer. “A strong work ethic and the ability to adapt quickly to new environments for example, are equally desirable.”
I don't know. I can say that, in my own place of work, university pedigree is a huge factor in hiring, at least of junior level employees. But it's not a good indicator of subsequent success. What are your experiences?
POST-SCRIPT: Your comments below made me think to add this terrific cover story by Nathan Thornburgh and Nancy Gibbs in TIME recently, titled "Who Needs Harvard?"
July 19, 2007 10:03
War in Iraq Is Expensive, But...
...so is the war for talent. That's according to the PriceWaterhousecoopers Saratoga survey on the subject. Saratoga’s 2007-2008 Human Capital Effectiveness Report contains results from over 300 organizations, a majority of in the Fortune 1000.
From these numbers, it appears that even as employers spend more and become more desperate to hire, they're employing fewer quality controls and thus making more hiring mistakes. Check it out:
Cost per hire increased from $2,615 in 2005 to $2,764 in 2006, according to Saratoga 2006/2007 Human Capital Index Report*.Lack of post-hire quality assessments- Although companies continue to invest a greater amount of resources into hiring, 61% of companies surveyed reported they did not assess the quality of these decisions post-hire.
Turnover - While nearly one in ten employees (8.5%) left within 90 days of joining a new employer, nearly one third (29%) left within their first year of service suggesting poor quality of hire. A majority of organizations' cost of turnover estimates range from 1/2 to 1-1/2 times a departing employee's salary depending on their level, tenure, and experience. The cost of losing these employees has significant impact to organizations and includes recruiter time and expenses, lost time for the new hires work team to interview and train the new hire, and on-boarding and orientation costs among others.Keeping employees on the job- Organizations seem to be retaining what they can of their current workforce. The percentage of employees leaving the organization involuntarily (e.g., layoff, dismissal, death) has decreased four years in a row to its current rate of 3.2% - a drop of 36% since 2003.
Graying of the Workforce
The percentage of employees eligible for retirement in the next five years increased to 22% in 2006 - an increase of more than 25% in the last two years alone.A Buyers' (Employee) Market
Offer acceptance rates have decreased each year since 2003 and at 91% are at their lowest rate since the dot com bubble of 2000. Employees are finding more opportunities in the job market each year and that retiring employees are adding to the talent shortage.Voluntary separation rates remained consistent in 2005 (10.5%) and 2006 (10.4%). However, one in ten employees voluntarily left their employers in 2006 and has generally been on the rise since 2003 with a compound annual growth rate of 4.3%.
#1 Operating Expense
For the past four years, the single largest expense for organizations has been workforce compensation and benefit costs, accounting for over 35% of operating expenses.
July 18, 2007 10:55
Intern Book Review! Thumbs Up for College-to-Career Guide
Last summer, I was asked to talk about my job to a roomful of Time Inc. interns. This is just about my favorite thing to do: I love to tell doe-eyed young journalists about all the crappy moves I've made so they won't have to repeat 'em. Not that they'll listen. Smart, experienced journalists gave me good advice, too, such as: don't be so eager to dump your first job; find an area of expertise early on; never take a journalism job for the money. Yes, today I've got what people tell me is one of the neater jobs in journalism. But my route here would have been a lot prettier had I heeded their sage words.
Anyway, one thing I emphasized to these fresh new interns was that they must at all costs make connections to people during their stint here. They were smart and resourceful enough to land these prestigious internships; now what they needed in order to land jobs were personal contacts. I handed out a stack of business cards and told the crowd that though I wasn't a hiring manager, I've worked in this building for 10 years and would be very happy to help them try to carve out a spot here.
My message, I felt, was all the more urgent because many of the kids there were part of a program targeted to racial and ethnic minorities. In my field, minorities are sorely underrepresented; it's particularly dire at my brand. That summer internship could be their foot into this world.
Only a few ever called. One, a young lady named Melissa Kong, stood out. She nabbed me for lunch, then proceeded to drop me e-mails over the school year, even during a research stint in Fiji. She told me all about her grand plans, her concerns about the financial feasibility of a career in journalism, the progress of a research project involving women and self-help. I know a lot more about her than I could from an e-mailed resumé, and, moreover, am far more motivated to help her (on that last point: take a look, recruiters, at her final line).
In College to Career, author Lindsey Pollak gives advice along these lines to job-seeking grads. I asked Melissa to review it for WiP from the perspective of the target reader. Here's what she wrote.
College to Career
90 Things to Do Before You Join the Real World
By Lindsey Pollak
Reviewed by Melissa Kong
“Take action!” That’s the tip Lindsey Pollak emphasizes in the very beginning of College to Career, and the message resonates throughout the book. That message is a great one, but this book isn’t without a few minor kinks.
Pollak’s one instruction for applying her advice in this book is that readers should use whichever tips they feel apply to them the most. It’s not supposed to be a “step-by-step, all inclusive guide to getting a job.” Well, that puts a damper on things pretty quickly; isn’t that what people want? A step-by-step, all-inclusive guide? Maybe it’s because I’m a control-seeking millennial, but 90 “things to do” seems daunting, especially when these tips are listed in no real order of importance.
Pollak loses her credibility a bit in the beginning with her overly youthful tone, using lines such as “When in doubt, ask someone outside of your family whether parental involvement would be kosher or not,” and, when describing her feelings about the job hunt after studying abroad in college she writes, “In a nutshell, my scientific diagnosis of my post-Australia situation is that it totally sucked.” If you want me to take your book about professionalism seriously, you need to write like someone I’d aspire to be, not a college buddy that I’d tell all my secrets to.
And of course, the book is infused with inspirational tidbits like, “There are no stupid ways to gain experience and look for a job. The only stupid thing you can do is nothing at all.” Well, actually I can think of a few pretty stupid things that might really hurt your chances of finding a job. But I suppose the advice works if you aren’t taking Pollak too literally.
In her defense, Pollak regains her composure as the book progresses by offering serious and creative tips for getting ahead. Her checklists at the end of each chapter are helpful when it comes to taking action, and she proves that success really starts with the little things.
For instance, one tip that might separate the classy from the mediocre college students and graduates is to have personal business cards made for networking purposes. Most twentysomethings would probably never think to do this, especially if they don’t have a full-time job yet. But Pollak explains how and why it should be done.
Advice about how to write a proper networking letter and creating a “brag book” for job interviews--that’s valuable information that indeed many people would never think of or know about. These tips are more likely to help you get your foot in the door and maybe one step closer to a corner office with a sweet panoramic view.
These little action-oriented tips ultimately make this book better than most of the typical career self-help books out there. Pollak keeps it real and honest; as a result, College to Career is more likely to produce results for readers than to induce in them a temporary motivational jolt with cliché phrases, such as “You gotta want it!” and “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog.” And while those classic career book sayings may be true and inspiring, I know that if I said something to my boss regarding fighting and dogs, she’d probably take me less seriously…or be scared of me, in a non-promotion sort of way. All in all, I’m much more likely to recommend this book--as opposed to many of the overly optimistic and unrealistic career books out there--to my fellow scared almost-graduate friends.
And to all of the prospective employers out there: May I give you my business card?
July 17, 2007 9:28
Victoria Beckham Never Discusses Money
So I got home last night about 8:30, paid the sitter, and fell onto the couch for a good bout of brain-free TV. I found what I was looking for in the hour-long NBC special featuring Victoria Beckham's arrival in the U.S.
We are big fans of David Beckham, the footballer, and by we I mean my husband. He'd go gay for David Beckham. I'm serious. To 100% of the world population that does not reside in America, DB is a huge if aging soccer icon, signed for a ridiculous sum to the L.A. Galaxy in a PR bid to help boost the still struggling Major League Soccer in the U.S. In America, the erstwhile Posh Spice is, unbelievably, still the more famous name.
By the time I tuned in, Posh was dressed in her best imitation of a Los Angeles society lady (were there such a species) in a skin-tight dress and a hairband to hold back her peroxide blonde do. She was making the acquaintance of a gaggle of plastic surgery brides of Frankenstein in a home decorated in the popular contemporary style called rich white trash. Though in her cut-away interviews Posh professed to find the ladies charming, the clip was clearly edited to both ogle at the women's wealth and laugh at their ostentatiousness.
At one point, a particularly cartoonish woman probes Posh about the size of her husband's package (pay package, you hyenas). These women barely know what David Beckham does or represents, but they've all heard about the payday: "I've heard it's, like, $60 billion!" brays the cartoon woman, Tammy Faye eyes full of hope.
The boppety background music screeches to a halt. Away from the scene, Posh acts out horror and declares to the camera: "I ne-vah discuss money--ne-vah."
No. 1: I guess she was trying to imply that she, being British, is well-bred, and the well-bred don't discuss money. I swoon at a British accent as much as the next Yankee, but even I can tell Posh is no blueblood.
No. 2: If her whole schtick is about embracing America, she better get the hell over her supposed breeding and stop implying Americans are crass. Besides, only a drunk hermit wouldn't have heard about DB's pay package--$27.5 million over five years. Okay, so if this were an actual gathering of society ladies, it probably wouldn't be cool to bring up the husband's salary. But come on. She brought reality TV cameras into the house. What did she expect?
No. 3: Posh is no housewife to a soccer superstar; she's a legit celeb in her own right, as one-fifth of the '90s supergirlband Spice Girls. If I recall correctly, their whole thing was about girl power or some such. With their reunion in the offing, she'd set a better role model for little American girls if she showed she had room in that coiffed head for numbers.
No. 4: Can't the woman crack a smile? Once again I think this has to do with her misguided notions of breeding; posh folks don't show their teeth, she seems to think. Well, every snap I see of Prince Williams shows him flashing the biggest, gooniest smile, and Americans loooove him. If she's too thick to figure out by now that Americans like strong, smart women who smile, she should perhaps hold off on unpacking those boxes.
Here's the ad from NBC:
July 16, 2007 2:21
For a Working Parent, Stress Is a Child's Birthday Party
We celebrated my kid's third birthday yesterday. Early thoughts of pony rides and poolside clown shows gave way to a homemade luau, and only because all the accoutrements were on sale at Party City.
What kind of moron would stress about a home party for a 3-year-old and her scabby-kneed cousins? What can I say--I'm just lucky that way. Plus I'm a working parent who relies on those 48* weekend hours to accomplish all the things necessary to manage a household and a family. Thank heavens I'm part of a couple whose other half can string party lights and secure tiki torches. I can only imagine the stress for a working, single parent.
I heard a really terrific analysis of stress on "Speaking of Faith" on American Public Media this weekend. The rheumatologist, researcher and author Esther Sternberg discussed the science of the mind-body connection regarding stress. Until recently, modern science did not have the tools or the inclination to take emotional stress seriously, she says.
Read her article in The Scientific American on The Mind-Body Interaction in Disease; listen to the raw interview with Krista Tippet here.
The thing I took away is that modern science is beginning to treat stress as a real factor in illness. As Sternberg says in the interview, disease isn't necessarily caused by stress; there is usually some other instigator like genetics. But it can deeply affect the way the body handles the illness. That's true for me; my own chronic illness is stress-related, which means it's largely work-related. If I stress about my wee one's luau, imagine how I freak out over a cover story.
The good news, according to Sternberg, is that there are ways to get a grip. The best one involves taking yourself away from the stressful situation--whether it be the bedside of a loved one with Alzheimer's or at the side of an abusive boss. Vacations do wonders, she says. But there again is a caveat: some are able to relax on vacations, while some others simply cannot. We stress addicts are simply wired to find something--anything--to obsess about. Even at a luau.
Got stress-busting tips? Do share.
July 13, 2007 9:16
Whole Foods Debacle Won't Keep Execs From the Web
Two news items involving boldface-name CEOs this week ought to teach execs about the perils of the Internet. John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, was outed as Rahodeb, a sort of anonymous commenter on a Yahoo! Finance web site who had a thing for slamming Whole Foods' rival Wild Oats. A bit awkward now that WF owns WO. Oopsy.
The other top business dog is Jon Corzine, former head of Goldman and current governor of New Jersey. He swore off e-mail in the wake of threats by his opposition to make public the e-mail between him and a former paramour (and labor leader). "We'll go back to the 1920s and have direct conversations with people," the Democratic governor said Wednesday, according to Newsday.
As more of our business lives are conducted online, we become increasingly careless about what we put there--despite clear evidence of the un-erasability of these missives. Top execs including the CEOs of Sun Microsystems and Marriott are blogging now, posting their thoughts, strategies and ideas online. E-mail is practically as natural and indispensable to many execs as breathing.
Will the latest news keep management from blabbing away online? I doubt it. I bet a dollar that the overwhelming reaction among other CEOs to Mackey's faux pas was, "What a schmuck...I'd never get caught doing that." And yet they continue to vomit out their thoughts in e-mail. Maybe they all should take Corzine's pledge. Is there any going back to 1920?
July 12, 2007 10:11
Big Paycheck = Happiness? Not.
We're undergoing performance evaluations here at TIME, and, although none was offered to me during mine, I believed that a raise that would more than double my salary would erase most if not all of my complaints. But big bucks don't bring happiness, according to Execunet, which recruits execs:
According to a survey of 2,149 executives with an average salary of $221,000, 48% report they are not satisfied or somewhat unsatisfied with their current job. Among those who are unhappy at work, more than half (52%) are preparing to leave their company within the next 12 months.
How bad can those jobs be? I would take a lot of crap for $221,000. I suppose once you start making that kind of scratch, you eye your neighbor down the street with the Jag and the summers in Mar-a-Lago and think you deserve those things, too. To misquote Sheryl Crow, it's not about the getting the things you want, it's about wanting what you got. Or somethin'.
July 11, 2007 10:10
My Home Country Is So Weird
Japan, as you may know, has been dipping in and out of a recession for the better part of two decades now. Are the country's workers depressed? No! So long as there's air to breathe, water to drink and fig leaves to wear over their privates, life is good! So says this insane video (thanks to my husband's friend Janey Choi for the heads-up).
July 10, 2007 3:25
What the Hell Is Web 2.0, Anyway?
Been pretending to know what's up when everybody at work is all web 2.0 this and that? Here's a handy glossary from McKinsey Quarterly:
What’s in Web 2.0Blogs (short for Web logs) are online journals or diaries hosted on a Web site and often distributed to other sites or readers using RSS (see below).
Collective intelligence refers to any system that attempts to tap the expertise of a group rather than an individual to make decisions. Technologies that contribute to collective intelligence include collaborative publishing and common databases for sharing knowledge.
Mash-ups are aggregations of content from different online sources to create a new service. An example would be a program that pulls apartment listings from one site and displays them on a Google map to show where the apartments are located.
Peer-to-peer networking (sometimes called P2P) is a technique for efficiently sharing files (music, videos, or text) either over the Internet or within a closed set of users. Unlike the traditional method of storing a file on one machine—which can become a bottleneck if many people try to access it at once—P2P distributes files across many machines, often those of the users themselves. Some systems retrieve files by gathering and assembling pieces of them from many machines.
Podcasts are audio or video recordings—a multimedia form of a blog or other content. They are often distributed through an aggregator, such as iTunes.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows people to subscribe to online distributions of news, blogs, podcasts, or other information.
Social networking refers to systems that allow members of a specific site to learn about other members’ skills, talents, knowledge, or preferences. Commercial examples include Facebook and LinkedIn. Some companies use these systems internally to help identify experts.
Web services are software systems that make it easier for different systems to communicate with one another automatically in order to pass information or conduct transactions. For example, a retailer and supplier might use Web services to communicate over the Internet and automatically update each other’s inventory systems.
Wikis, such as Wikipedia, are systems for collaborative publishing. They allow many authors to contribute to an online document or discussion.
July 10, 2007 9:00
Blogging Can Get You Fired
I just took three days off, so imagine my alarm when an e-mail shows up in my inbox today with this subject line: "Had a good vacation? Great. You're fired." Turns out it's a news item from the AFL-CIO plugging its online legal resource for workers. Here, according to the union, are
Top Ten Strange But True Reasons Used to Fire Someone
1. Working too many hours
2. Blogging
3. Smoking
4. Holding a second job
5. Not asking the boss for permission to go on a date
6. Being hospitalized
7. Working fewer than 7 days a week
8. Working fewer than 100 hours a week
9. Taking a 5-minute break in the middle of a 10-hour shift
10. Not doing someone elses job along with your own.
Nice world, ain't it?
July 9, 2007 1:41
I Don't Floss on My Commute
...but this guy does. Check out this treatise on InsideHigherEd.com by a professor who lives in Pittsburgh about why he loves his 120 mile commute. He's tired of defending his reasons for taking a job so far away:
Sometimes my inquisitors are mollified by these justifications; more often they still seem to doubt my veracity and/or my sanity. Occasionally when I’m feeling that I’m winning over my questioner, I’ll take a chance and reveal that not only do I not hate the commute; I actually enjoy it much of the time. I may add that I’m a busy father of three who rarely gets time to himself, that I appreciate the bubble time in the car, time during which I meditate, pray, ruminate, dream, and breathe. Warming to the opening, I may expound on how I use the time wisely, such that after quickly showering and dressing in the morning, I am into my car — there I can eat breakfast (fruit, protein bars, juice), shave (electric is best), floss teeth (it’s safe, really, when one is free of company on the road), comb hair (ditto), and, toward the end of my trip, put on and tie my shoes.
More good reading: take a look at my friend Penelope Trunk's first article for TIME, "What Gen Y Really Wants" (some of you will get it in your mags if you subscribe). It's about the predilection among young workers to smoothly blend work and play:
For these new 20-something workers, the line between work and home doesn't really exist. They just want to spend their time in meaningful and useful ways, no matter where they are.
Concerned about workplace bullying? So is The New York Post, which makes no mention in the article of its famously strong-willed boss, ol' Rupert:
Studies show that as many as 45 percent of American workers have experienced some form of harassment or abusive treatment during their careers. Antibullying lawsuits are on the rise. And legislation has been introduced in more than a dozen states, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, that would ease the way for workers to sue toxic colleagues for fostering “abusive conduct” or “an abusive workplace environment.”
USA Today has a piece on how diversity is a "business imperative" in a global era:
In past years, many U.S. companies lost their way in a business Babel, where international workforces are as likely to speak Spanish, Hindi or Mandarin as they do English. Today, though, as more multinationals race into the global economy, they're tailoring their diversity policies and practices to the new cultural and business order to a greater degree than ever before.
Like cultural chameleons, they're adapting to hundreds of countries, languages and religious practices. They're juggling more cross-border teams on all continents. They're recruiting and hiring diverse talent from Shanghai to Mumbai, India.
July 9, 2007 11:05
Women Can't Suck at Self-Promotion
Marci Alboher has a smart piece on the New York Times' online edition about the art of self-promotion. The writer she refers to in the lede is actually me; before we met, I had cheerfully and, in retrospect, rather insensitively complimented her on her horn-tooting skills. It appears she didn't take it so well, at least at first.
Alboher is the author of a book I reviewed here called One Person/Multiple Careers; she sends out occasional e-mail newsletters to her apparently huge circle of friends and acquaintances listing upcoming author appearances, recent press mentions and speaking gigs. The newsletters are written in an exuberant voice that I learned is genuinely hers when I interviewed her for my blog post. I found that voice charming, but not everyone did; she writes in her article that some recipients asked to be removed from her list.
I have a lot of author friends who wring their hands about achieving just the right tone in these kinds of e-mails, and often their default resolution is just to skip them altogether. That's why I was impressed by Alboher's unabashed "bragalogue" (as a source in her article calls it). Another reason I was impressed is that she's a gal. And too many women suck at telling bosses and colleagues how damn great they are.
It's not totally our fault. We're trained from birth not to trumpet our achievements; it's unladylike, they say. But lacking the skill of self-promotion is a giant handicap, especially in the age of brand Me. In order to survive--much less get ahead--in business, each of us has to learn to advertise our greatness.
I too struggle with how to achieve this without coming across as a total ass. I typically hate self promoters. Life's too short to listen to you blabbering about how you landed that cover story; it makes me want to watch you die. But some people do it so well that I don't care or even realize they're boasting. I had a favorite editor once who was so charismatic and clever that fans like me agreed with her own high ratings.
In my view, there are four ways for women to self-promote effectively without alienating the world:
1. When in doubt, go with the funny. It's hard not to like a jokester, even when she's bragging. Talk about how you discovered after your interview with Johnny Depp that you had a schmear of lipstick on your front teeth. A spoonful of self-deprecating humor makes the medicine go down much more pleasantly.
2. Drink your own Kool-Aid--to a degree. There's nothing more insufferable than a braggart who believes her own hype