How to Handle Work Overload Gracefully

The situation:  You’re new at your job, and you are liking it. But your plate at work is very full and your boss wants you to take on an additional assignment. Eilene Zimmerman, writing the Career Couch column for The New York Times, answers questions about work overload.

Q. What can you do instead of saying yes to a work request?

A. “First, express gratitude that you’ve been asked to take on something new, because it means your boss believes in you.”

Tres Roeder, president of Roeder Consulting, notes that “if you think you may already have more work than you can handle, tell your boss that because you’re juggling other time-sensitive projects, you need to examine the details of this new task to determine if there’s some way you can fit it in.” You may find you won’t be able to, but automatically responding “no” without any consideration gives the impression you just don’t want to deal with it.  “And you don’t want to be known as the person who always says no unless they get the perfect assignment.”

If the work needs to be done immediately, tell your boss what you’re already working on and then let him or her do the prioritizing, suggests Evelyn Williams, a professor at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., who teaches organizational behavior. “Ask what you should do first. Should you stop working on X and Y and finish this new project first?

Q. Is it ever a good idea to try to squeeze in the extra work, even if you’re already feeling stretched?

A. If the project could improve your skills or get you noticed by those who can promote your career, it may be worth losing sleep over, Professor Williams says. “Think about it strategically,” she says. “Will the task or project be a good thing for your career? Will it build your network?”

Q. What can you do in the future to help manage your work commitments?

A. Give your manager short, weekly status updates about your workload, suggests Professor Williams. “Managers can’t see into every employee’s world,” she says. “You have to tell them what’s happening in the trenches so they can make better allocation decisions.”

Managing Your Expectations During a Job Search

It’s human nature to form expectations. We all create expectations all the time, but we rarely do it consciously. The problem is that most job seekers have unrealistically high expectations, and therefore often find themselves disappointed.  To make matters worse, when your expectations are not met you feel much worse than the good feelings you get when your expectations are exceeded.

In his book Your Brain at Work, David Rock offers some useful advice for job seekers.  Rock says it’s crucial to understand what is in your control and what is not. As a job hunter, you know it is tough to find a position in this economy, but you cannot do anything about that. You might have unreasonable expectations at two extremes: an expectation of being hired quickly or an assumption that you will never work again. Neither expectation is helpful, as neither is under your control.

Instead, Rock suggest you take action over things you can control: research the job market thoroughly, make contacts, and apply for positions you qualify for. Gather as much knowledge as you can. Then, form an expectation in the middle: you will find a job at some point.

In a recent column in The New York Times, Alina Tugend interviewed Rock about the best way for job candidates and others to manage expectations.  ”There is no template for managing expectations. It seems as if it is best to have low expectations of things out of our control, realistic expectations of things we can control to some degree and high expectations of ourselves,” writes Tugend. And, perhaps the greatest truth of all is: always expect the unexpected.

How to Answer Interview Questions Perfectly

Getting ready for an interview? There are lots of ways to prepare. Look up some common interview questions and think about how you would answer them (We’ve compiled our interview advice /sample questions here).

But once you know the question, how should you develop your response? Scot Herrick from Cube Rules recommends using a CAR to answer interview questions: Context, Action, Result. I have also heard this called the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result. So how do you bring a CAR to the interview?

Herrick says include Context: Describe the situation you were in/the problem you encountered. Remember that the hiring manager wasn’t there with you, so you need to fill them in on what was happening, the urgency of it, how you were tasked to make an impact for the organization.

Then, talk about the Action: What did you do to turn the situation around? How did you make a productive decision? Describe the action you took to either show your job skills, show your motivation, or show how you fit in a team.

Lastly, end with Results: What was the consequence of your actions? What problem did you solve? How did it improve the numbers, change the process, and help the company?

What has your experience been? Does taking a CAR to the interview work for you? Let us know! Leave a comment below.

How to Ace Online Testing

Before you get the job, you have to get through the recruitment process. Some companies make it more difficult than others – with long applicant tracking system applications that take over an hour. And some companies require that you do online testing before they offer you the job. As frustrating as it may be, it’s a necessary step between you and your dream job. So might as well figure out how to ace those online recruitment tests. Mervyn Dinnen of the jobsite Insider gives us 5 online testing mistakes to avoid:

• Skim Reading – If you skim, you’re more likely to answer incorrectly. Instead, read and absorb the content fully.
• Spelling – Check over what you write. It’s easy to make a typo; catch it before the hiring manager does!
• Grammar – Use straightforward, succinct sentences to minimize grammatical errors. And again, proofread!
• Nerves – Find a way to stay calm. Nerves are a natural reaction, but if you can calm down, you’ll think clearer.
• Honesty – Answer what you believe is true, not what you think they want to hear. Don’t over think it.

How to Network Mutually Beneficially

Networking is likely the route to your next job… It’s more personal than applying on a stark job board, and it may help you find out about opportunities that aren’t openly advertised.

So is networking a good thing? Definitely. But there are ways to do it properly (and effectively) and ways that are just a waste of your time.

Luckily, the experienced Jeff Haden gives us 5 great networking tips. Here are my 3 favorites:

1. Give before you take. Of course you want something; you want their help. But the trick is: “never ask for what you want.” By giving your expertise and your help, you can establish a real, solid, meaningful relationship. A relationship will make them want to help you, not just an annoying person asking for help.
2. Don’t assume they care about your needs. You’re out of work and you need a job – that’s your problem, not theirs. Haden says “the only way to make connections is to care about the needs of others first.” Show them you care about them, and then maybe they’ll care about you afterall.
3. Network where it’s mutually beneficial. Yeah, having the top executive connect with you would be great, but the way to actually make a helpful connection is to find someone who can benefit from your expertise – and vice versa. So that you can follow up on #1 and #2… make a relationship that goes both ways.

Another hurdle for job seekers: social media checks

Companies have long used criminal background checks, credit reports and even searches on Google and LinkedIn to probe the lives of prospective employees. Now, some companies are requiring job candidates to pass a social media background check.

According to Jennifer Preston in an article for the New York Times, a company called Social Intelligence scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.

Then it assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets specific criteria: online evidence of racist remarks or violent activity; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos.

“We are not detectives,” said Max Drucker, chief executive of the company. “All we assemble is what is publicly available on the Internet.”  The service alarms privacy advocates who say it invites employers to look at information that may not be relevant to job performance.

How to Avoid Saying: “I Was Fired”

Something about the words “I was fired” makes prospective managers’ blood run cold. If you left your last job on less-than-sensational terms, there’s got to be a way to address that issue positively, right? Longtime HR director Liz Ryan, writing for Bloomberg’s Businessweek.com, says there definitely is.

“There is zero requirement ever to tell a hiring manager or HR person that your previous employer let you go,” she writes.

Job seekers who know what they bring—who know the business problem they solve, in other words—don’t have to over-explain. Job seekers who have identified a hiring manager’s chief problems and have already come up with ways to link their experience to the manager’s “business pain” don’t have to please anyone in order to get a job offer.

How to Spin It

You don’t owe a prospective employer the details about what happened when you left your last job. But you have to find a way to explain why you left. Ryan offers some possibilities:

Option No. 1: The Learning Was Done

“It was a fantastic learning opportunity for me—I credit those folks with teaching me everything I know about X-Y-Z, for instance, but it was time for me to go, and we agreed on that just as I was getting interested in social marketing.”

The “we agreed on it” is key, Ryan says. “If the “agreement” took place only in your own mind as the security guard escorted you out of the building, that’s fine.”

Option No. 2: My Interests Shifted

“I got to do so many fantastic projects at Acme Explosives, but my focus was shifting into project management, and the opportunities for that were very limited at Acme. I didn’t know what I would do next exactly, but my friend from college was starting a consulting practice, and I decided to collaborate with her on that as I shifted to the next thing.”

Option No. 3: We Went in Different Directions

“When I got to Acme Explosives, the mission had everything to do with building the brand fast, and we had great results on that front. Two years later, I was becoming a zealot for branding and customer evangelism, but Acme was moving more into OEM work, where the branding piece was almost nonexistent. It wasn’t a great fit for me anymore, and we decided to move apart.”

“Whatever you tell a prospective employer,” Ryan says, “focus on that employer’s need and your own tremendous talents in solving similar needs in the past.”