Living Life...

Hey everyone.

Hopefully this post finds you well and in good spirits.

I've posted some really interesting topics over the past several months--topics that have provided advice in a job search and/or networking and encouraged you to keep your head held high and your spirit strong. I've certainly posted my fair share of discussions and passed on others' advice, but I don't believe I've offered my own heart-felt words of wisdom.

As such, I offer you these words: Live life to the fullest extent possible.

Why am I saying this? What's prompted me to get all philosophical and/or emotional on you? The answer is quite simple: One of my cousins recently died in a motorcycle accident. At 26 years young, his life was cut drastically short in a split second. He was a wonderful young adult and involved in many things--most notably a US soldier who served in Afghanistan for a year and a police officer within two communities.

He loved life and lived it to its fullest extent, as he spent time with his family and friends and traveled to many parts of the US and Europe. He served as a fine example for the rest of us--an example of how to be happy with our lives and treat others with the utmost respect.

He has caused me to take stock of my own life and realize I have way too little time on this planet to be concerned about petty things. I must focus instead on getting back in touch with those contacts whom I've unintentionally allowed to fall by the wayside and on doing those things I've always wanted to do.

I feel the life I've led thus far has been pretty good, as I've been blessed with an awesome family and a wonderful set of friends. However, I also know (especially now) that there's much more to life than what I've seen so far--that I've only begun to scratch the surface of what life has to offer.

So I guess that's the challenge....Figure out what I want to explore yet in life...where I want to go....whom I wish to re-connect with.....etc., etc., etc...

This applies to everyone--whether you're an active or passive job seeker. If you're an active job seeker (i.e., employed without pay), take advantage of the time you have available and stop to smell the roses life has to offer every once in a while. If you're a passive job seeker (i.e., employed with pay), realize that although work is certainly important, it'll be there when you get back, while the time you spend with your loved ones is limited.

One more thing....As you're out there living life to its fullest extent, if you like motorcycles PLEASE wear your helmet and protective clothing. My cousin, who normally did so, chose not to because he was running a "quick errand" to the store just down the street, and his cause of death was severe head trauma to the brain. If you know anyone who rides a motorcycle, please cite them this example on why wearing a helmet is so important.

My apologies if I've made anyone feel way too sappy after reading this. However, I feel it's important to take life by the reigns and not let go, and I wanted to convey that to you. Spend time with the family. Go to that place you've always dreamed about. See the world. Party like there's no tomorrow.

Live life to its fullest.....I know I plan on doing so.....

Thanks for reading....

Best Regards,

Orin Albrecht

"Analyzing the world one map at a time"

Lunch Anyone?

Hey everyone.

As a job seeker, it's important to be at the top of your game--especially during an interview. But what if that interview is outside the office? What if it's over lunch? Do the same rules apply? The better question may be "What additional rules should be followed?".

Below is an interesting article regarding lunch interviewing that I read in today's Chicago Tribune and wanted to pass along to you. There are some good tips in there to follow--some you may already know and some you may never have thought about.

Bon appetit...

Best Regards,

Orin Albrecht

"Analyzing the world one map at a time"

http://tinyurl.com/ycd4yzu

Email Tips

Hey everyone.

Here's an article by Steve Coon on keeping your emails free of grammatical errors and--just as importantly--keeping them simple. These are tips all of us can use.....

Best Regards,

Orin Albrecht

"Analyzing the world one map at a time"

________________________________________________________

Grammar and spelling mistakes, such as those in the subject line of this email, are sure to get you the wrong kind of attention in your job hunt. Modern software has made writing e-mails so quick and easy that you can easily find yourself clicking "send" before you really should have.

How do you prevent yourself from making the type of mistakes I just made in the subject line? My advice is to not trust the computer and to keep it simple.

Spell-checker is your enemy.

That darn, deceptive spell-check feature is your enemy. Sure, it fixes the obvious misspellings, but it misses the context, so you can end up using the wrong their / there / they're or its / it's by accident.

(My weakness, because of the way I type with a very dominant right hand, is writing "form" instead of "from" and the dang spell-checker never catches it... because it's spelled right even if it's the wrong word!)

You need to re-read your emails carefully — my best advice is to set them aside after you've drafted them, take a bio break or a walk around the block, and come back and proof-read once more before hitting "send." The need for clearing your head to make sure your email is simple and makes sense leads to my next suggestion, which is: Simpler is safer.

A lot of the bad emails I see aren't bad because the person writing them is unintelligent. Quite the opposite. They are bad because an intelligent person is trying to say too much, in too complicated a way, with too much complexity, in a bid to sound qualified for the job.

But that is just exactly the wrong approach. Because, in fact, what employers and hiring managers are looking for is somebody who can communicate clearly and effectively. Rarely do long, complicated words and compound, complex sentences make you sound easy-to-understand. And those longer, more turgid e-mails have a much higher chance of a misspelling, or grammar mistake, or unclear meaning, than a simple email.

Look, we're trying to get you a job here, not win the Nobel Prize, so don't over-complicate it and get too fancy. It reminds me of a famous exchange between two writers who did win the Nobel Prize, William Faulkner (famous for complex, dense prose) and Ernest Hemingway (who rarely used words greater than two syllables):

Faulkner: "Hemingway has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
Hemingway: "Poor Faulkner! Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"

If you're trying to get a job, simple, clear communication is far more effective than big five-dollar words.

As an example, which of these two people would you rather hire?

Sally Simple writes, "I work well with teams, that might not necessarily like each other, to get them to understand the other side's viewpoint, sometimes with a bit of humor, and work together so that we can all be successful as a company."

While Terry Turgid elucidates, "My background indicates a capability to bring together disparate elements of the organizational structure in which inherent tensions arise due to the substance of the work output, the cross-utilization of organizational resources, and competition for allocations and prioritizations that occur as a result, and to enable those elements to optimize their effort co-ordination and process implementation in order to achieve synergistic outcomes on behalf of the global organization. "

Now both of those say the same thing (I think), but which candidate would you put in charge of getting sales and marketing to work together? Or leading the product and tech groups on an important new initiative? I'll take Sally Simple every time.

My rule of thumb for job hunt emails is: if Mom can't understand it, you're not communicating. Not so incidentally, this rule applies to 80% of business email communication, not just the job hunt. OK, folks, that's my two bits on e-mails.

I hope you have a clearly successful and simply wonderful week!