Melva Gifford

The following advice is from the notes I took from a lecture at the ldsjob service department. Until you have a firm job offer keep doing 10 calls a day and 10 face to face meetings a week.

The only time you call people you don’t know is when you have a name that referred you to them.

Example: hello, xxx.

Mention the name of the person who referred you. Prior to the call you will want to find out how the two know each other and why the referral feels this person is a good contact. Be reader to give context of how the two know each other.

Referral said you might know about such and such.

Ask open ended questions

Have questions prepared in advance

Have a script prepared in advance.

In the beginning of the call ask if now is a good time to talk for about 10 min.?

Ask for referrals at end of conversation.

At end of conversation thank them for their time.

Ask if its ok to touch base later?

Type of questions:

Before making the call you will want to ask your referral how they know the contact.

What does the contact do?

Ask them how the contact will be able to help.

Your referral may be a good person to practice some of your questions with for feedback.

Concentrate the interview on the company, not you.

Information interviews:

Be prepared with questions and knowledge gleaned from the one paragraph job description.

What type of skills are you looking for as an employee.

What do you know about xx jobs.

What does the company value in employees?

What does your organization reward?

How long have your work at your job?

Why is the job open>?

What challenges does your company face?

What areas are profitable?

What do you see as your competitors

How did you get your job here?

What kind of projects are you working on?

Who do you know that works at xxx <other target co. you’re interested in.

At the end of the interviewer you may ask Who do you know that xxx…

If you have some items to add to the list, please share them in the comment section of this blog

Today’s theme is inspired by Toastmasters training session I attended on Saturday. I hope this topic can be of use to youth ministries, family councils, family devotionals and family home evenings.

I was recently asked to serve in the position of VP of Education for the Toastmasters club called mainstreamers located in Northern Provo. Since that time, I hadn’t been changing my behavior to fulfill my responsibilities. I have to admit I didn’t know what my responsibilities were. Sense attending the training of Toastmasters on Saturday, I have a much stronger idea of my responsibilities and duties. And feel I can move forward into feeling my responsibilities much more successfully.

Today’s topic is an invitation for those in leadership to let their subordinates know what their responsibilities are. Training is so important to let people know the resources and responsibilities their title or responsibility represents. Now that I know what is required of me. I’m in a better position to the feel my educational roles in Toastmasters. My lack of knowledge contributed to me not providing a positive contribution to the organization. A similar restriction might be occurring to other people’s responsibilities because they don’t know what they need to do.

Those in leadership positions must train your subordinates, particularly if they have responsibilities. They need to be perform, and if they have to lead others. As a result, their productivity as well is that of the entire organization will improve.

I remember listening to some educational courses on leadership at the last place I worked. The course mentioned that one good way to train people in responsibilities is to give them small tasks in the beginning. This teaches them the skills and knowledge you want them to obtain. As they gain experience and knowledge you then able to assign them a bigger task. After that, they get a bigger task and a bigger task. That way they begin to evolve and expand their capabilities as you give them more opportunity to use their skills.

Another thing I remember on leadership training is that people need to have signposts that monitor their success. In the case of Toastmasters, I will be responsible for documenting people doing speeches and preforming different leadership tasks within the organization. A symbol of my success will be shown by how well I feel out their evaluations in the workbooks. This will also provide multiple positive effects.

1. It shows their evolution as they grow and learn to be a speaker and leader.
2. The organization has task performed by an active membership and
3. The member is motivated to continue their progress to fulfill future positions of leadership.

When mentoring someone, I think someone is more teachable, are they just start out rather than when they’ve had a lot of responsibilities for the long-term. So if you want to influence someone on their techniques or relationship abilities with their peers or subordinates that might be achieved more successfully when they are just starting out. When you do give suggestions tell them what they’re doing right, as well as areas that we need to improve.

These are just a few ideas about mentoring and about informing people of the responsibilities. Since the training on Saturday, I feel much more comfortable about what is required of me in my position.

If you have some ideas on delegation or what you think is important when training a subordinate who has lesser leadership position, please feel free to share your ideas in the comment section this blog. Thank you.

I discovered a useful way to use linked-in in regards to networking a job search.

At an unemployment services, it was recommended that we use link and as a possible resource to find contacts and see if they have heard about job openings. The idea I came up with is to put the name of the company into the search box of LinkedIn that is currently listing job openings. When I do this under the company name will be every employee that has identified their employer in their bio. Underneath each person will display shared relationships between that employee and one of my contacts in LinkedIn. Then all I have to do is send a message to the person that I know and see if they are open to connecting me with the person that is an employee.

In my original query to the people I know I asked them if they would be willing to be my contact with that employee. But I received some good advice at an employment center. It was suggested that instead of saying; please connect me that I may be better to ask if that employee has ever talked about the company and how he or she felt about working there. By asking the question in that way it doesn’t sound as intrusive. Anyway, I was pretty excited this new idea of networking.

Bad:    heros

Good: heroes

I have the hardest time remembering the second e in heroes. Now I might have a mnemonic device that may help. There are heroes who are both men and women. There is an e in she and an e for he, thus for both he and she I remember there are two Es. hEroEs.

If you have an idea for remembering the second e, please feel free to share it in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.

Melva

I’ve been attending a networking group each weekday morning and have been learning useful information for job searching. This is one of the topics that was covered: Networking for job leads. It is important to set goals for yourself. The more people you contact the faster you can find jobs leads that are useful for you. Try to call at least 10 people each week day.

If there is a certain company you want to work for, you may want to call that company and see which staffing agency they go through to get employees and then apply through that staffing agency. Ie: Novell may use Deco.

Make a list of people you know. some examples are:

Church; neighbors; Facebook; linked-In; Emails lists; common interests groups; prior customers; organizations; past coworkers; Own family; prior customers; Community contacts; peers different departments; Phone list; Address book; Employee at Target co.; Schoolmates; Professors;             Teachers; Members of professional society; Referrals; Job fairs;                   chat groups; Parents of students you work with

Don’t waste time. Check out national employer web sites. Document each call with one column of purpose of call, another column for notes on conversation, plus a third column to document the time of a follow-up call.

Call each person; ask them who they may know in your area of speciality and branch out your network.

Today’s thought was inspired by some talks at church. I hope today’s message can be of use to youth ministries, family counselors, parents and grandparents.

In the LDS culture, there are many stories of the pioneers crossing the plains to reach Utah. One of the most well-known points of history is where some Saints were crossing the plains with their families and some US military personnel came to wagon trains, asking for the men to volunteer to fight in the American/Mexican war in the 1800s. Even though the Mormon families were fleeing the United States because of persecution they still agreed to offer their services in the United States Army.

As a result, those who remained to drive the wagons the rest the way to Utah and take care of the kids, wagons and livestock where the women. This point of history is a wonderful example of the perseverance of Mormon women who had to rely upon their own strengths to reach Utah. Leaders of the Pioneer track and sometimes youth camps will use significant events in history to help teach the youth important spiritual lessons.

I participated in the imitation track crossing the plains as a young adult. I was pretty quick on wimping out. I never realized how hard it is to walk in sand and to try to push a wagon in deep sand. Because of my limited personal experience, my appreciation of what the Mormon Saints went through to reach Utah has much more significance. This same lesson is being taught to youth groups by giving them a similar experience.

In this year’s example of the wards youth track, they reenacted the experience of the men leaving for the Army and the girls being left to travel alone and to manage the wagons by themselves. To imitate the experience, the boys took a different trail from the girls on their individual Pioneer treks. After the group of boys and girls were reunited from their separate trails, the boys were not permitted to help the girls in the struggles. The boys were instructed to stand on both sides of the road and sang to the girls as they passed them. The boys desired to help the girls in their struggle, but are not permitted to do so. The girls had the experience of learning self-reliance. And the boys were able to observe the strength of the girls. Many youth talked about the spiritual impact that this experience gave them.

I use this example as an encouragement for various youth camps to create an event that will leave an impression on their students.

On girl’s camp, there’s a certain area in the mountains, they always go to. During the week of girl’s camp, the girls will often have burning bonfire in the middle of the lake. The leaders of the youth groups will make a comparison of the bonfire to Christ, his life and his teachings.

These are both good examples that leave a very poignant experience for those attend these youth camps. I wager other Christian churches probably also have their examples of very strong emotional moments of teaching the youth. The encouragement is for teachers of youth camps or of non-religious camps to teach principles through the activities of the camp. A popular example, I think, is the rope maze. People will climb on ropes strung across the branches of trees to teach about trust and teamwork.

With all the wonderful imaginations of youth ministers, youth leaders and parents, there’s a whole repertoire of opportunity to create significant events to teach a principal. In the next youth event, I invite the leadership to brainstorm on ideas that might create a moment of contemplation for their students. You might even have several throughout the week. I find I can get some pretty good ideas from brainstorming with fellow leaders and praying to God for inspiration.

I wish success to all future camps and treks.

If you have an example of an emotional moment that either you helped create, or you received during one of these tracks or youth camps that has not been mentioned, please feel free to share it in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.

I had more spelling words to touch upon but came across and article called “10 worlds that you’ve probably been misusing”. I thought this article might be of use and thought I’d share it.

Here is the link:

http://hellogiggles.com/10-words-that-youve-probably-been-misusing

Thanks to Tyler for writing it.