Category Archives: career

job jumper tip #3: it’s not all about the money

If you have negative impressions of job jumpers, it’s probably because you met a mercenary. The mercenary job jumper will leap at opportunities for more pay and little else. He will jump from being a manager at Pepsi to a position with the exact same title, responsibilities and situation at Coke for an extra $5000 per year. He doesn’t look past his next raise or his next bonus, and everything he does is centered on maximizing his salary.

You may wonder what the problem is. If I said I didn’t care about getting a raise, I’d be lying. I like to make more money. Everyone does. However, if you want to be a job jumper, you have to use your jumps strategically. Let’s break down a $5000 increase in salary. That’s only going to be an extra $208 per bimonthly paycheck - before taxes. After taxes it’s even less - particularly if that $5000 pushes you into a higher tax bracket. You end up with an extra $100 per week and a resume that starts looking spotty.

Here are a few things to consider before you make a job jump solely for money:

1. Will my costs be the same? You may work at a company right now where the atmosphere is business casual, the cafeteria has subsidized lunches and perks abound (free coffee, a company parking lot, etc.). Before you jump to a higher paying job, consider whether your costs also go up. I went from one client where I had free coffee, parking and almost-free lunches - and I could wear golf shirts to work - to one where I had to wear a suit and tie, coffee wasn’t provided and parking was out of the question (and even public transportation cost me $11 per day). It would have taken an extra $100 per week in salary (probably $5000 per year before taxes) to break even with the first client!

2. Does the new job show growth in my salary or growth in my skills? I have seen a lot of resumes. Nothing looks worse than someone who switched from one company to a similar company where they performed similar duties - but made more money. You must justify job jumps with personal growth in skills or the number of people you manage or even lifestyle improvements (closer to your home, more work-life balance) but never with “it was just a better salary.” Future employers will think “if this guy is willing to dump his employer for an extra $5000, what’s to say he won’t do it to us in 6 months, too?”

3. Money can’t buy you happiness. Penelope at The Brazen Careerist points out that more money - by itself - won’t make you happy. Consider whether that extra $10,000 will change your life - or should you stick it out and use your mastery of your current job to cut down on your hours? Learn new skills? Or frankly, just have a longer lunch break? Or have more energy for other pursuits when you get home? These things can be worth more to your career (and your peace of mind) in the long run than a short-term gain in salary.

4. Raises are for suckers, and once you jump that’s all you’re likely to get for a while. I’ve talked about this before, but it takes a long time for year-over-year 5% raises to amount to much. A 5% raise will just keep you ahead of inflation - barely. Jumping to a new job gives you a one-time boost in salary, but if it’s at the same level you’ll still keep sweating out those 5% raises every year. Most companies don’t like to promote people until they’ve been at the company for more than 6 months. Think about whether you’re more likely to move ahead if you stay another 6 months, or jump. You want the job that’s going to push you from staff to manager, or from manager to executive. That’s where the big bumps come in.

5. Don’t think about next year’s salary - think about your next decade’s salary. Let me tell you a story. Two guys, Sam and Warren, start out working for the same company. It’s a high pressure company, and the staff/manager pay is below average, but it produces a lot of very successful people. Sam and Warren both start out making in the $60s, let’s say. Sam jumps ship for a bureaucratic corporate job making $75. Warren toughs it out, getting measly raises and working far too much for his money. In 5 years Sam’s making 50% more than Warren, but his salary has flattened out - he’s gone as far as he can at the easier, bureaucratic jobs and he’s forced to jump from job to job to get any sort of increase. Warren suddenly gets a big promotion to executive, because he stuck it out - he made his connections, he learned his job. He even left the company, strategically, for a couple of years but then came back in a new position at the old job when something opened up. He’s jumped internally a lot, but stayed connected. He’s making 4, 5 times as much as Sam - because he thought about his career long term. He was looking 10 years ahead, instead of just wanting a one-time 25% increase.

So think about these points the next time you’re tempted to jump to a new job for a 10% raise. It sounds good in the short term, but a real job jumper has a long-term goal and doesn’t chase short-term gains. The successful job jumper stays focused on building skills and relationships, not on grasping for an extra $100 per week.

Check out the rest of the job jumper tips:

(Image created by AMagill)

so you want to be an international business jet setter…

Here’s an interesting look at my work schedule from about 7 years ago (I dug this up from my journal, which I’ve kept daily for 11 years now).

Sunday
- evening: Depart from New York, headed to Frankfurt

Monday
- morning: Arrive in Frankfurt, go to hotel, shower (European time is morning, but more like 3 am New York time).

- work a 10 hour day, assisted liberally by German jet fuel, er, coffee.

- evening: out late for drinks with colleague from Frankfurt office - beers in Germany - who knew?

Tuesday
- morning, afternoon: meetings with Frankfurt colleagues; separate off-site meeting with consulting team.

- evening: fly to Paris and its lovely airport, lovely late evening traffic, lovely chain-smoking taxi drivers, lovely $500 hotel room with paper-thin walls. Ah, vivre bien!

Wednesday
- morning and afternoon: meetings, meetings, meetings in grim lifeless Paris office - maybe one of the most humorless cities I have ever seen and my least favorite international destination (other than Brussels).

- evening: fly to Istanbul. Without opening my mouth I am mistaken by every single last person I meet as being Russian, not American - despite looking about as American as a blond, blue-eyed freckled guy wearing a Polo shirt and Dockers slacks can look in Istanbul.

Thursday
- morning: meetings at consultant offices (cramped and uncomfortable but with stunning views of Istanbul)

- afternoon: on-site meetings with local office.

- evening: hit the bars with consultants; any preconceptions about the lack of alcohol in a predominantly Muslim country are quickly swept away.

Friday
- lunch meeting, which I discover in Turkey means (a) more food than I have ever seen in my life and (b) work is more or less done for the day.

Saturday
- work, both at consultant’s offices and in my hotel - which sadly enough feels like a break when I’m still typing out reports at 9pm on a Saturday.

Sunday
- day off, (i.e. sleep and eat long lunch reading what sports news I can get my hands on in the hotel bar)

- late afternoon: flight to Warsaw. They serve peanuts (I am allergic) and I spend the flight wondering which would be worse, vomiting in the teeny tiny Polish airlines bathroom or passing out in the teeny tiny Polish airlines seat.

Monday
- meetings with Warsaw office in the morning - about 17 people around a conference table designed for 10.

- in the afternoon, met with officers from the Moscow office who happen to be in Warsaw (which makes me irritable since it removes any reason for me to go to Moscow within the next few weeks and I love Moscow).

Tuesday
- morning, fly to Bucharest; spend day at work and evening in local sports bar (befriending Romanian bartender), moving on to a casino (still in the hotel - I am unwilling to attempt Bucharest proper most of the time due to roaming packs of wild dogs and a predatory look in the cabbies’ eyes when they see Americans get in the cab).

Wednesday
- 14 hour day; return to local sports bar where friendly bartender, in the spirit of Romanian-American friendship, provides far too many free glasses of tuica for an American unaccustomed to it.

Thursday
- take 14 hour flight from Bucharest to New York wishing tuica were not so strong. Plum booze. Argh.

Friday
- back at work at corporate headquarters in New York - file expense report, file memos on trip, meet with boss, start planning next trip.

That’s 5 international cities in 10 business days (12 days total). Most of the days tended to include approximately 14 hours worth of “work”. That might mean 4 hours of meetings, 4 hours of email/calls to New York HQ, and 4 hours of report writing either in the office or in the hotel room. I usually took a break for 2-3 hours starting at 7 or 8 for a trip to the hotel bars (which tended to be quite fun, filled with other business travelers and local cheerful bartenders and waitresses), then return to my room for another 2 hours of work before collapsing. I saved the drudge work for those last two hours - updating my assistant on travel plans, filing expense report info, dealing with the non-technical emails, formatting reports (gotta get the TPS just right).

I took a step back from that lifestyle, and as a result here’s my schedule. The hours are long mainly because my client’s about 1.5 hours from my home.

Monday: leave for work at 8, home at 7.
Tuesday: leave for work at 8, home at 7.
Wednesday: leave for work at 8, home at 7.
Thursday: leave for work at 8, home at 7.
Friday: leave for work at 8, home at 5:30 (skip out early).
Weekend: I have worked one Saturday in the last 3 years (and that was at home).

I look back and think that my previous schedule was certainly glamorous from outward appearances. I was the very definition of a jet-setting businessman. I had an American Express Corporate Card and no limits on spending. The horrific demands of traveling (physical, mental and emotional) meant that the company was willing to make every single last creature comfort available, because otherwise people just wouldn’t do it. I didn’t mind so much because I was single (and likely to stay so, with my “2 weeks in New York, 2 weeks overseas” schedule. I never understood how the people who were married with kids tolerated it. Now that I’m married with one child (and another on the way) I couldn’t tolerate it.

So if you’ve ever wondered what a big-shot corporate international travel itinerary looks like, ta-da.

job jumper tip #2: be a discriminating networker

If you read “how to land your dream job” articles, you’ll always hear people touting the benefits of networking. I think too many people see the word “network” and think “I have to stay in touch with every single person I have ever known for the rest of my career.” You can’t do this, you won’t do this and you shouldn’t do this. Networking is an art, not a science. There are no hard and fast rules to networking, because at its core networking is about making and keeping friends. They are work-friends, definitely; these are not the people you’ll be sharing popcorn with on the couch watching Survivor. But they are people who need to believe you are more than just a blood-sucking leech trying to get something from them. If you are a job jumper, you DO need something from them - but you can’t use them once and then discard them. You have to keep that network healthy if you’re going to stay on the jump.

First of all, let’s separate our “network friends” from people who are “just” friends. I have a friend (I’ll call him Ralph) that I met years ago through work. Ralph and I had a good, friendly, joking relationship for a couple of years before we each headed our separate ways. Although we both went into consulting, he moved to another state and started working for a firm doing a very different type of consulting than I do. Although we have no professional overlap since we work in completely separate markets and industries, you might think there is some value in maintaining Ralph as part of my “network” for the precise reason that we ARE so different - you might say he could be my toehold in that market/industry. I say no. I never want to live where he lives, having been there, and he has no interest in coming back to the NYC region (where we worked together). I worked in his industry before and hated it with a passion - I would never go back. Of course our paths might cross again professionally, but the chances are good they won’t. I count him as a friend, but not part of my professional network.

Ralph and I stay friendly by trading an email or two each year, but nothing more. With another former colleague (I’ll call him Karl), I exchange emails once every couple of weeks and call on the phone every month or two. Both of us have helped each other with job searches, ideas, and expanding our networks. He has been a reference for me, and I for him. He is both my friend and a valuable part of my network.

If I tried to keep my interactions spread out widely enough to catch all of my Ralphs, I’d lose some valuable time that I spend connecting with my Karls.

Building a professional network is not simply shooting someone an email invitation to join your LinkedIn connections because you are connected at some remote Nth degree. Being part of a network means the members are interdependent. Everyone has something they can bring to the table. If I keep a person who reported to me years ago in my network, it’s because I might be able to help them by giving them recommendations. If I keep a former manager in my network, it’s so I can recommend current colleagues who might be job-jumping to connect with him. All of these people should be able to do the same for me, too. If someone can’t provide a useful function in the network, they don’t need to be there.

Having a network of 1,000 people through Facebook or LinkedIn or jobster may be an impressive number, but it’s essentially useless. Unless you are more organized than most people, though, you will have a hard time maintaining good, collegial relationships with 1,000 people. You may be able to do it. I suggest you pick one online networking site and stick with it. Don’t try to connect with people on 50 different sites.

A better way to spend your time may be to focus on a smaller network but with sincere, useful interactions on a frequent basis. When you meet someone and want to draw them in to your network, help them - without even the least hint of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” Put yourself out there to help them. Make them want to join your network instead of trying to force yourself into their network. Help them connect with someone who might make a good employee, or a contractor who could help them get over a tricky problem, or even give them a link to a useful website they might not have heard of before. You will be amazed at how much people appreciate the effort even if they don’t take advantage of the offer.

There is an important principle at work here. I am sure you might look back at my friends Ralph and Karl and say that Ralph might someday be in a position to help someone I know get a job in his market. That may be so. But this is a case where the Pareto Principle has to be applied: I need to spend 80% of my effort on the 20% of my network that has the best chance of being useful TO ME and only spend 20% on the other 80% of my network, including my “work friends.” Karl is worth 80% of my effort, since he’s in the 20% of my network that can (and has, and does, and will in the future) help me with job-jumping. Ralph just isn’t. He’s still my friend, and I’ll stay in touch - but there’s no need to include him in my “core” networking group. If I have to make a choice between communicating with Karl or Ralph, I’ll pick Karl. Priorities have to be set.

Make an effort to identify the people in your network who you can help and who can help you. Eliminate the rest from your active professional network. I realize that sounds mercenary, but we’re talking about your career, which probably has at least some mercenary aspect to it. Unless you are doing it solely for “love of the game,” of course, but most of us work at our careers at least partially for the money. Make a point to reach out to your network. Find ways to help them. Don’t discard people who can’t help you today - or who you can’t help - but don’t spend time connecting with your Ralphs at the expense of your Karls.

References:

The single best networking book I’ve ever read is Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time. Keith Ferrazzi has an easy, conversational writing style, some unconventional ideas about how to succeed in networking, and most importantly he’s done it all. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about the “art of networking.”

One of my favorite authors is Penelope Trunk. Her book, Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, is an invaluable resource for understanding what it takes to succeed in today’s workplace. She also has a well-written blog that always has an unusual, thought-provoking take on career (and life) management.

The sites I mentioned are great for networking, although some are better than others. LinkedIn and Facebook get a nod simply because of their reach, but jobster and jibberjobber have some interesting features.

Check out the rest of the job jumper tips:

(photo credit: stanrandom)

job jumper tip #1: create a WIDD file

jobjumper1

A neighbor commented to Bubelah that she visited a career coach to help concoct a resume after being laid off. She worked for a major financial institution that decided to layoff thousands of workers after some poor decisions by senior management (who, of course, did not lay themselves off).

Having worked for this company for her entire career, she had never prepared a resume again after being hired 15 years ago. I was shocked to hear this. My experience has been radically different. I have worked in four different cities and two countries for five different companies. For two of those companies, I made major changes in the department I worked for, necessitating a whole new interview process. As a consultant now, I “interview” for a new client on average once every six months. I do nothing but polish up my resume.

So as a confirmed job jumper myself, I decided to devote the next few Wednesdays to advice for the “job jumper” - someone who willingly jumps from position to position (I’m shifting the link roundups to Fridays). You don’t even need to change companies. My definition of a jumper is someone who needs to interview before working in a position, either internally or externally. How is this different from a job hopper? A job hopper implies (to me, at least) a more casual, laid back approach - just switching jobs for the sake of switching. A job jumper is making a definitive, forceful push for a reason.

These tips will be useful for anyone who is considering a change in their current “job” - even if they are self-employed. My intention is to make each tip simple, as well, because I have come across a lot of dense career advice. Advice you can’t easily use is the worst kind of brain clutter.

So…

Tip 1: Keep a “what I done did” (WIDD) document.

I have a Word document that started out as a Word 2.0 file back in the mid-90s. I think the first time I saved it, it went on a floppy disk. The old school, 5 1/4 inch floppies that were really floppy. This document - I call it my WIDD file - has been a lifesaver over the years. I work in a “project” style job (except for one year in corporate financial reporting). A “project-centric” job means that I have projects that begin and end - I don’t do the same thing month after month. I go to Client XYZ, perform consulting/auditing/accounting/etc., give them a report and move on. Sometimes this takes months and months. Sometimes I do it in one or two days. At one point I managed eight different projects running concurrently (with a staff of 25). The point is that in 15 years I have probably averaged 50+ projects per year.

I kept a written record of what I did at all of them.

This is critical for a jumper. You need to keep a record of what you actually did, not what your duties were. This is different than keeping a resume. When I jump to a new position, I don’t list every project I managed. I do, however, hunt through my WIDD file to see if I can find a skill or experience that is relevant to the position I want to get. I could never keep all of this information in my head, or in a resume. If I keep it in a file that’s easy to search, I can quickly and easily tailor my “bare bones” chronological resume to highlight some clever “hit points.”

You don’t have to keep a long description. Do make sure you hit the high points. For my audit work, I might highlight which parts of their financial statements I personally audited, or difficult accounting issues I had to decide with the client. Two or three bullets usually suffice.

Try and keep a WIDD file. It takes one or two minutes per week to update and the next time you need to prepare a resume, you’ll be able to highlight specific, relevant experience rather than giving a potential employer the same dull, drab resume with generic skills that you give everyone else.

Check out the rest of the job jumper tips:

6 classes every well-rounded person needs

bookWhat are the best subjects to learn for business - and life - success?

If anyone sat down to identify the perfect secondary (and maybe college) education, I doubt they would come up with today’s average American curriculum. While there are plenty of courses in basic skills (reading, writing, mathematics, and so on) many other just as critical basic skills are overlooked (personal finance, homemaking, health/physical education). What are some of the critical components missing from our national curriculum?

From my own personal experience, I can suggest a few, but there are probably many more you can think of easily. I could also bash a few courses I took, but an argument can always be made for “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” I believe that sincerely. I have never, for example, “used” A Tale of Two Cities in my day-to-day life, but I’m glad I was forced to read it, stuck with it and finished it. Experiences like that created a love of reading for me. Other subjects I guess can be chalked up to “generally good to know although not terribly useful.” For me this included subjects like biology and mythology (one semester of “English” was actually spent studying mythology, which apparently means “Greek mythology” since we didn’t study anything else). While both were interesting, I didn’t learn much from either except that I don’t like biology and that you shouldn’t steal fire from the gods.

Here are a few subjects that would be very useful, and why:

1. Typing. Out of all of the courses I’ve taken in my life, this one has made the most profound difference in my daily life. I took a typing course in high school, back when it meant learning to pound out “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” 500 times on a MANUAL typewriter. However, the experience taught me how to type, and very, very well, which means I can blaze away typing even while carrying on a conversation or reading something else. Really.
2. Speech. I took a public speaking class that changed my life. Before that class, like everyone, I was nervous about speaking. After it, I was still nervous, but I learned that it was a temporary nervousness and that anything was possible. We had to give speeches to groups, recite monologues, debate, take questions and almost any type of “speaking in front of a crowd” activity you can think of. To this day I am relaxed and confident speaking to any group; I have addressed 2000 people or 10 board directors with equal calm.
3. Personal finance. I didn’t ever take a personal finance course, and I wish I had. Everything I learned about finance before college came from my parents, my grandparents or my own reading. A course that taught me things they weren’t as familiar with or not as proficient with - real estate dealings come to mind - would have been a great learning experience for me. That having been said, I’m sure personal finance would use textbooks sponsored by Capital One and tout the benefit of home equity loans to consolidate credit card debt.
4. Physical education. As a varsity athlete I was exempt from physical education, but I wish I hadn’t been. Learning to do some very basic “normal” training would have been helpful. I focused all of my energy on preparation for one sport (tennis) rather than general fitness. This had disastrous results later in life.
5. Homemaking. Don’t laugh. I think learning how to cook could save this country billions in health care costs. Imagine if people could actually prepare healthy food at home. My mother is a terrific cook, and I never had any motivation throughout high school to learn how to cook. I went straight from there to a fraternity house where meals were provided. When I finally started living on my own, my gourmet best was frozen pizza…
6. Civics. I took a civics course, but it was ridiculous. My wife, who is an immigrant, was required to undergo detailed testing before she obtained US citizenship on the Constitution, US history and civic life. Now, it may not be necessary for everyone in this country to know how many Congressmen there are or how many Supreme Court justices there are (although they should) but everyone should know the Bill of Rights and their civic duties (jury duty and so on).

You could go on, but these are some basic courses that would make a big difference in the US population. They are not taught often enough, and it’s a shame they aren’t. I am amazed to this day when I see people hunt-and-peck on the keyboard - not because I blame them, but because that’s not a basic required course for graduation from high school today. The same goes for the other 5 subjects up there. It’s hard to say when they will be required - or if they ever will be - but we can hope.

how to obtain an extraordinary job

Q: Did you always dream of drawing and writing, or were you about to happily settle for a so-called normal job? Was it the misery of “humiliating and low-paying jobs,” or the joy of drawing and writing, that pushed you this way?
A: I pursued a normal job so I wouldn’t starve to death while figuring out how to have an extraordinary job. I just didn’t know how it would play out. —Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert (link)

How can you find an extraordinary job? What’s the secret to a fulfilling career?

The perfect job. Who doesn’t dream of finding that perfect job? Flexible hours, massive responsibility (or lack thereof), great pay, interesting work, convivial colleagues, travel with perks, and a corner office overlooking the city. Chances are that it’s just that - a dream. Most of us who work for a living - as opposed to entrepreneurs - are stuck working at something less than our dream. The need to pay the rent, the mortgage, the medical bills and so on simply makes the necessity of a paycheck too much to disregard. There are some positives about having that not-so-perfect job, though. Here are 9 things to remember about your current less-than-perfect job:

1. You don’t have to go out feet first. I pose this question to people at work often: do you plan to die at your desk after decades of working for this company? The answer is always no, so I say “then you plan to quit - it’s simply a question of timing.” Remember that your job is not forever. The drama and politics that seem so real now will be gone in 10 years - probably even less - from your memory.

2. You are not your job. Albert Einstein was a patent clerk. Nobody remembers Einstein for his year-end patent clerking evaluation, or the patent clerk staff meetings he skipped. He was not defined by his job, but by his work. If you love to paint, don’t let the fact that you work in retail sales discourage you from painting.

3. Take pride in your paycheck. It may seem like a small thing, often dismissed as “not following your dreams,” but there is some value to simply bringing home a paycheck. If you have a family, be proud that you can provide for them. If you are single, be proud that you stand on your own feet without help from your parents. Even if your job is not perfect, take some pride in the fact that through this job you can support yourself (and your family).

4. Never stop learning. Even the worst possible job presents opportunities for learning - even if they are lessons like “I never want to do this again.” Try and find opportunities in your job to learn new skills. Those skills might come in handy at your NEXT job.

5. Your colleagues may change. If you suffer with a particular colleague, remember that they may leave any day. You don’t necessarily HAVE to be the one to blink and quit! Sometimes you can outlast people that irritate you.
6. The next job may not be that great, either. Everyone has experienced the sinking feeling of quitting one job, moving to a new one and discovering it may be even worse than the one before. If you set an expectation that your life will be a never-ending series of triumphant improvements, you may have some too-high expectations to overcome. Even a near-perfect job will have its off days.

7. Working on the side is only possible if you have “a side.” Writing the next great American screenplay is a terrific idea (although you’ll be crossing the picket lines if you do). However, nobody has ever said that you have to do that and nothing else. There is no shame keeping your day job to support yourself and working on side projects meanwhile. Scott Adams kept working at the phone company in a cubicle even after Dilbert became a syndicated comic strip. Keep at it. Success will come.

8. Don’t discount the social aspect of a bad job. Sometimes the job duties may be bad but the people you work with are great. If you have a bad job but you like your co-workers, keep in mind that a rewarding job doesn’t always guarantee like-minded, friendly colleagues.

9. Motivation isn’t always positive! Sometimes keeping that not-so-perfect job is what spurs people on to avoid “jobs” altogether. Maybe the employee lifestyle just isn’t for you - use that frustration with your current job to inspire you to discover your real passion and break away!

(photo by Ol.v!er [H2vPk])

8 steps to a six figure career

I have a job making well over six figures. I am not bragging but I’m not going to be overly humble about it, either, because I put my blood and tears into getting there. I spent 6 years in college obtaining two degrees (and starting a PhD). I spent most of my twenties working like a maniac in the professional accounting sweatshop industry, also known as the Big 4.

I was horrifically underpaid on an hourly basis - I was working 80 hour weeks when I was making $35,000 per year. I roughly estimate my earnings at the time to have been about $12 per hour. That’s not shabby - it’s probably a working wage in many parts of America - but it’s not exactly what you’d hope for if you have an advanced degree in accounting.

There was a payoff, though. The payoff came in three parts. One: I laid the foundation in my first 10 years for my current position. I view it as retirement in small. I worked hard and was “frugal” with my wage to earn a better “retirement” post-Big 4. I only have the “senior expert consulting” tag now because of the effort I put out for the previous 14 years.

Two, I got to see the world on my companies’ tabs. I traveled from 1996 to 2004 to every single corner of the globe. Some employers flew me coach, some business - I stayed in fleabag hotels in third-world countries but I also stayed in opulent palatial hotels and even in country estates and former palaces. I had to work like a maniac (meeting at 9 am in Frankfurt! meeting at 3 pm in Paris! report due by 2 am European time that night!) but I also got to sip martinis at the nicest lounges on four continents without spending any of my own money.

Three, I learned what the real secrets are to success as a corporate cog. Again, no pride in saying this, just observing what floated and what sank as I slowly, slowly floated. So from that, here are my eight tips to set yourself on the road to a six figure career.

  1. Pick a good college major. Don’t major in English, or history, or poli sci. I’m sorry. It’s true. I love history. My dream major was either linguistics or Russian history, specifically early Soviet history (1917-1939). They still are my dream majors, for that matter. I got a major in mathematics, though. I wasn’t great at it, but I wasn’t bad, either. To this day, though, I get goggle-eyed looks from my finance colleagues when I say I don’t have an accounting degree - I have a degree in MATH! Just like that guy from A Beautiful Mind! I even studied exotica like chaos theory. No matter that I couldn’t explain any of it now - people are still impressed, which leads me to…
  2. Don’t get a job using your major. If you are accounting major #76 out of 100 in your new joiners class, you won’t stand out. If you are the only math major, you’ll stand out. Standing out early in your career is critical - if you don’t start to stand out until your 4th or 5th year, it’s too late (although keep point #8 in mind, too)!
  3. Get a graduate degree or certification. I got a master’s degree, but I just as easily could have gotten a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) or CFA or CFP or CMA, etc. etc. Again, you need something to distinguish yourself from the Bachelor’s crowd - I think my master’s has opened a lot of doors that would otherwise have remained closed. I can’t emphasize this point enough. I know there are people out there who became officers with only a high school education, or a mail-order college degree. You may even find that with the rise in online colleges, more and more people will get degrees online while they work. But at the end of the day, if you want to get into a six-figure career, it’s going to be significantly easier if you have a master’s or an MBA or a law degree or a certification of some sort.
  4. Take a ‘weird’ job. Early in my career (after about 2 years working) I volunteered to go work in Germany - but there were no openings in my company. I then proceeded to volunteer for a number of other assignments - odd ones around the US, in Europe, strange assignments like doing inspections of grain silos (yes, some clients are willing to pay accountants to verify how full silos are). All of my activity got me noticed, and I found myself winging off to Moscow with less than 3 full years’ work experience under my belt. To this day, it’s the first thing that anyone wants to talk about when they see my resume. Always. People are always full of questions, and I can throw out anecdotes that give me the appearance of being a confident self-starter because of my fearless decision. That one experience probably increased my lifetime earnings significantly, despite being (from my point of view) almost meaningless work-wise.
  5. Move to a big city early in your career. The simple fact is that in the 4 years I moved from a small town in the south to Connecticut to New York my salary increased by 200%. It was simply a cost of living adjustment, but that impressive salary growth creates an expectation in your employers. Big cities have more competition, higher costs of living and “fancier” jobs at corporate headquarters. These jobs may not be better but they usually do pay better. So think about looking at a company like United Mayflower to see your moving options.
  6. Shift jobs frequently - but not too frequently. The simple fact is that you’ll hit dead ends all the time. Sometimes they will be external (stuck working for a boss who won’t let you transfer to other departments for new opportunities) and sometimes they will be internal (you just can’t summon any enthusiasm for your current work). Use these as red flags to jump ship! You can get a reenergizing boost to your career, usually for at least a small increase in salary, by taking your expertise to another company that needs it. This also relates to #5 - it’s a lot easier to job hop in New York (hundreds of multinational corporations) than it is in Kansas City (a few). I’m not saying it’s impossible in Kansas City, but the circle of people in your profession will be smaller and eventually you’ll run out of options if you aren’t careful.
  7. Learn to sell yourself. This is an incredibly difficult thing for some people, and it’s hard to understand why. I’ll give you a quick way to get over it. Imagine something you really like: your favorite band, your favorite movie, even the bar around the corner that makes the best martini. Imagine that you’re trying to convince someone who’s indifferent to try listening to that band, or watch that movie, or try that martini. How do you do it? Can you imagine that enthusiasm in your voice, the excitement that you feel? Now take that enthusiasm and sell your favorite person: yourself! Make sure that you aren’t embarrassed to point out your strengths, or even to tell people how you are fixing your weaknesses.
  8. Learn to fly below the radar but do a good job. This advice flies in the face of a lot of career advice. I can state that at the middle management level, going down to staff, one thing and one thing only is valued - serving your master. Your master is your boss. Make your boss look good. If you make yourself look good, by extension you make your boss look bad, because you are stealing his thunder. Learn to perform solidly but quietly. Don’t dash into the CEO’s office with your hot product development idea. This may be the way to earn the CEO’s momentary interest but it will gain you a career-long dislike from your boss. If you want to have cheerleaders in your corner, stay on the sidelines. Have enthusiasm, cheer as loudly as possible, but don’t run out on the field and snatch the ball from the quarterback, your boss.

Think you can’t do it? You can! I have seen incredibly smart, personable, motivated people fail and dull, bitter people succeed. The biggest factor past the 8 steps above has always been a fervent, desperate desire to cling to the corporate bosom and keep getting that paycheck. It is amazing how quickly good people can fail when they realize they would do better following the white rabbit, and how strongly bad people will fight and scratch their way up the ladder to maintain their debt-ridden, consumer-driven lifestyle. I scratched and clawed for years to stay on the corporate treadmill, but finally realized I needed to step off. People constantly ask me what happened as if I’ve failed, but their opinion is unimportant. I took the first step to FREEDOM when I realized a six-figure salary isn’t important if it costs you your life.

 

professional envy

I don’t usually like to prepare a straight-up reaction piece to other bloggers’ posts, but this one just got me thinking so much that I decided to bump my planned post and go with this one instead.  Lazy Man talked about professional jealousy yesterday in the context of finding out one of his former college classmates was now a VP at a major financial institution.  Read his post first.

Some background:  I stepped off the corporate career ladder about two and a half years ago.  My travel load was heavy, the politics were getting awful and I was increasingly unhappy about my job duties and future prospects.  I decided to make a radical (for me) shift to full-time contract consulting.  I ended up taking a halfway route by working for a company that provides some back-office support but basically leaves me out on my own as far as the work’s concerned.  I don’t have a supervisor or staff or a computer or anything provided to me by my company, other than the marketing and payroll.  So while I’m not completely on my own, I’m about as much on my own as you can get and still get a W-2.

A lot changed for me over the last few years.  I was formerly a senior manager and had been managing staff at a succession of companies over the last decade.  I probably supervised hundreds of people, and even at times supervised other managers, who in turn supervised their own staff.  Some of the staff were wonderful people, who I have stayed in close touch with.  Others were forgettable or downright unpleasant.  Most of them, however, have continued as employees.  I only know of one person who left the corporate fold altogether to establish his own company, and it’s doing very well.  But in general most of my former staff have clung tightly to the corporate bosom.

Some of the good staff people have surprised me beyond my expectations.  About 10 years ago, a young woman was assigned to my audit team at my major Russian client in Moscow.  She was straight out of university, and was extremely shy and tentative.  I worked with her for a couple of years, and was very pleased to see her come out of her shell and become more confident.  Now she is a finance executive for a major European airline company.  I don’t kid myself to think that I played any significant role in her development, but I do give myself credit for not derailing her, at least.  Other staff have gone on to similarly fantastic roles, and I’m always pleased to hear about it.  Some are CFOs of representative offices.  Some are partners in small CPA firms.  Some are happily zooming around the world as management consultants.  Some are simply mid-level managers, but confident and successful at that level.  I could name a half dozen who were junior staff working for me who are now skipping right up the corporate ladder and managing staffs of their own, and I am very proud of all of them.

I mention these stories because I suppose I should be jealous that staff I managed have gone on to equal my professional status, or in a few cases surpass it (and in a few cases, GREATLY surpass it) - but I’m not.  I don’t feel any jealousy, and I think it’s because I like to feel some of their success is due to me.  Probably no more than .000001%, but I hopefully provided a tiny bit of wisdom and maybe more than a tiny bit of positive feedback and mentoring and coaching, and I’m glad it helped.  I don’t begrudge them their victories.  Life is not a zero sum game.

However, I think the difference in Lazy Man’s case was that he was talking about a peer of his, and I identify with that, too.  I see coworkers who I have never liked; who are less competent, more annoying and simply (in my opinion) worse people than me move ahead and it kills me.  Sometimes it’s because they have discarded their personal life.  Sometimes it’s because they stayed in the corporate race while I dropped out, so it’s just stick-to-it-iveness.  However, sometimes it’s just luck, and that makes me angry.  It shouldn’t, but it does.  I left two companies at exactly the wrong time - in both cases, had I stayed the perfect position opened up within a year and I would have been the first choice for those positions.  But I left, and someone else got the role.  I know that the past is past, but it is hard to know these people are in those roles.  I get sick when I think of some of these people moving ahead in the world.

It’s easier for me if it’s friends of mine rather than just colleagues.  My roommate from my early years in New York, who only had about two years’ experience on me has gone on to international high finance and is dramatically successful, and has done it without (apparently) wrecking his family, and I’m very happy for him.  Other friends of mine have reached high levels in their companies (big and small) and I’m happy for them, too.  One has done well with his own business.   But I don’t feel badly, and I think it’s because we were never in competition.

Lazy Man’s final point in the article sums it all up.  Don’t worry too much about how others are doing career-wise, because it’s not the whole picture to a life.  Just because someone is a VP at a financial institution doesn’t make them happy, or fit, or well-adjusted, or even financially comfortable.  Personal finance blogs will always tell you that "keeping up with the Joneses" is a recipe for disaster.  Keeping up with your friends’/acquaintances’ careers is a recipe for disaster.  I have a different goal than keeping up with Co-worker X.  My goal is eventually to leave my corporate consulting gig while I’m still young and sane and fit, rather than leaving it feet-first in an ambulance or hearse.  My personal goal is to have a business card one day without a title at all.  Hopefully if that card says anything about me, it will say "financially free writer."  That will mean more to me than being CEO of Lehman Brothers or Chairman of GE or Yahoo!-in-Chief would, I think.  I can be happy for everyone who chooses to race up the corporate ladder, because I got off - hopefully before it was too far to jump.

clean up your desk

If you work in an office, chances are good that you work on a desk that is covered in a mess.  Twenty-five years ago when most people still used their desks for writing, papers were a big problem.  With the arrival of the desktop computer, most people added a monitor, a keyboard, a mouse and a host of accessories (printers, external drives, etc.) to their desk - and didn’t get rid of the paper!  Keeping a clean desk is a challenge for even the most disciplined corporate soldier.  I manage to leave every night with a completely organized desk.  I did not come by this easily.  I had a large corner office in my last full-time job, and it was completely full of papers and binders and computer equipment.  When I changed departments, though, I had to move everything and realized I didn’t want all of this junk to follow me to my new office.  Even more, when I became a consultant I lost my office altogether and went back to the cubicle warren.  Here is what I learned:

  1. Death by a thousand paper cuts is the number one killer of desk cleanliness.  If I have an electronic copy of something, I don’t print it out.  If I have to print it out, I only keep it if there are notes on it I need to save - but I quickly add those notes to the electronic document.  Try to keep everything you can paperless.
  2. You’ve got old-fashioned mail! Take a look at the mail you are getting.  At work, you may be getting some professional publications, interoffice mail or credit card bills.  At home you are probably getting a different mail order catalog every day and a million pieces of junk mail.  Try to stop them.  All of them.  Try the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Opt Out service.  http://opt-out.cdt.org/
  3. File almost nothing.  There are many people who swear by various methods like Getting Things Done regarding filing.  I say file as close to nothing as possible.  If you need to take an action on it, take it and discard.  If you need it for future reference, put an ‘expire’ date on it and stack it up on your desk.  Go through the stack once in a while and discard.  If you have a legal reason to keep a document, do so.  Otherwise I am willing to bet you that you will probably never refer to it again.
  4. Never keep binders.  This one is simple.  Someone else has the binder. Unless it’s something you refer to several times a day, recylce the paper and give the binder back.  In the unlikely event you refer to it, borrow someone else’s.
  5. Use the common printer.  If you have a printer next to your workspace, chances are good that you print a lot of junk you don’t need.  Set up your computer to print to the department’s common copier/printer.  If you have to get up and walk around the office you’ll think twice about printing something - but if you do, at least you’ll get a little bonus exercise.
  6. Don’t put anything on the walls.  I know you think you need some reference material there - phone numbers, calendars, org charts - but you don’t.  All of that information is far more accessible and searchable on your computer.  Get it all down, it’s just visual clutter.  If there’s anything you must have in front of you, move it as far out of your direct line of sight as possible.
  7. No pictures.  I know you think everyone wants to see Junior, but they don’t.  Make your desktop into your picture.  If your company doesn’t let you do that, just keep a few image files in your Documents folder and flip through them once in a while.  If you really need one - the spouse and kids - then do it, but no-one needs to see pictures of you with a fish, or you at last year’s holiday party at Chez Mayonnaise.
  8. Pick a date for purging.  Everything on your desk and on your PC should have a ‘purge’ date.  My trick was this:  once a year I would throw out every single document in my office and delete every single file on my PC older than one year.  I had to keep a few documents for legal/tax reasons but everything else went.  I didn’t even do much critical assessment.  I never missed anything more than a year old.
  9. Before you leave every day, stack up loose papers.  Put a date on every piece of paper if there isn’t one, and keep it in a stack.  Put newer stuff on top.  You’ll be amazed how often you do NOT hunt through the stack to find something.
  10. Bring nothing, take nothing.  Don’t bring junk from home (bills, newspapers, etc.)  Don’t take work documents home.  If you MUST work at home, bring your files on a memory stick or CD, but don’t haul papers back and forth.  Inevitably you’ll end up with junk at home, too.
  11. Be pushy about being paperless.  Tell everyone you are paperless.  Tell them you are saving the company money.  Tell them too much white paper makes you snowblind.  But just tell everyone you prefer electronic documents, at a minimum.
  12. Don’t be embarrassed about being disciplined.  This tip is one of the strangest.  Many people are afraid that they look unproductive with a clean desk.  A particularly sloppy client of mine used to give me a hard time about my clean desk.  Don’t worry - no-one evers gets fired for having a clean desk.

If you just follow a few of these tips, the day will seem a lot more organized to you on a regular basis.  Keep at it - Rome wasn’t built in a day!

achieving greatness

Paul Potts won “Britain’s Got Talent” a few months ago. If you aren’t familiar with that show, or its American copy (I wasn’t) you can skip watching it and just go to YouTube to see his performance [warning - launches a video]. Potts was a cell phone salesman who appeared on the show. Suffice it to say he’s no male model. He is chunky, with bad teeth and plain features. His accent seemed fairly strong to me (I don’t know how it would seem to someone from the UK). His demeanor on hitting the stage in front of three judges (one of them the infamous Simon from American Idol, a show I have never watched but hear about incessantly at work) was fearful. He took the stage and offered to sing “Nessun Dorma.” The judges rolled their eyes and the crowd murmured apprehensively, wondering why he wasn’t singing the latest from Atomic Kitten or Coldplay.

“Nessun Dorma” means “let no one sleep” and it has always been associated with the recently deceased Luciano Pavarotti [warning - launches a video], one of the most popular (if not the most technically brilliant) tenors in opera. It was also the theme song of the 1990 World Cup. Many people are also aware of it because of Andrea Bocelli’s version of it [warning - launches a video].

I am no opera fan - I fell asleep watching “Die Fledermaus” in the Munich Opera House once. I might stick on a Three Tenors concert if I cruised by PBS while channel surfing, but it is definitely an acquired taste. To listen to Potts sing “Nessun Dorma,” therefore, was just a minute’s idle curiousity for me.

He was amazing. The version he sings feels as if it had been ripped straight out of his chest. I could tell that his voice quivered here and there and maybe some of the notes were slightly off, but the raw emotion and force of his singing just blew me away. The judges were taken aback in amazement. The crowd exploded. He went on to win the competition.

Critics have argued over the years that Pavarotti and Bocelli are not technically proficient singers, and they will argue the same about Potts. Bocelli, in particular, is more of a pop sensation than a critical darling. However, if you are not an opera expert and you have ever heard Bocelli sing, you know that some of his songs are beautiful almost beyond bearing. Again, keep in mind I am no opera fan… but I’ve seen him twice in concert and his singing is heartfelt and emotional and engaging. Pavarotti was often accused of being lazy and just trying to ‘sing along with the music’ but he almost single-handedly dragged opera into a wider mass market audience. Potts will no doubt be torn apart by critics claiming he’s technically deficient and only the recipient of a brief 15-minutes-of-fame phenomenon.

I believe all three of these men demonstrate something important, though. You do not have to be the smartest person to be the most successful. You do not have to be the most handsome to be the most popular. You do not have to be the most beautiful to be the most beloved. You do, however, have to project passion and life into whatever it is that you do. You will seldom find anyone at the top of their career or their avocation or their lives who do not have a singular passion. Finding that passion lifts them beyond the merely technically proficient. In sports, in politics, in business and most importantly in life people with this passion are successful.

So if you do not have a degree from the best school, or lack movie-star looks, or suffer from a handicap or don’t have enough time to do what you want, remember that somewhere out there someone with an even greater deficit of abilities than you is striving with all of their might to bring their passion to others. Don’t listen to the critics. Ask yourself - what is your passion, and what can you do today to fan those flames just a little bit higher?

raises - are they for suckers?

If you work for an employer, chances are that you get paid a fixed amount and it is increased every year. Chances are also good that you are being paid in money, which is subject to inflation. The result is probably that your real wages are probably stagnant. As the New York Times pointed out recently:

Americans earned a smaller average income in 2005 than in 2000, the fifth consecutive year that they had to make ends meet with less money than at the peak of the last economic expansion, new government data shows.

Total income listed on tax returns grew every year after World War II, with a single one-year exception, until 2001, making the five-year period of lower average incomes and four years of lower total incomes a new experience for the majority of Americans born since 1945.

Go read the article before it goes in the (pay to view) Times archive.

I calculated my own raises, year over year. My best year was a 62% raise, and my worst was a three-year tie at 4%. The 62% raise was an exception to the rule. I left a stable job in a small Southern city, Memphis, and moved to the gargantuan metropolis of Moscow and received, in effect, hazard pay. The actual raise in real terms was even more, because I didn’t have to pay US taxes on it.

Over the last 5 years, my average annual raise was 5% - so my salary this year is 27% higher than my salary in 2002. For the last 5 years, the inflation rate was 14.29% (inflationdata.com). Therefore, my real purchasing power increased approximately 13% over 5 years.

This is not tremendous growth. If you had an investment that had returned no more than 13% over five years (more or less 3% annually) you would probably dump it. Isn’t your career an investment of sorts?

I am a consultant, so there is no real possibility of huge upward leaps in my salary unless I go back to a salaried job. I was a senior manager when I snuck out of the workforce and into consulting, so I would probably go back in as a senior-level manager or a very junior executive. I know from talking to various investment bank clients that I already make more in base salary than an experienced vice president, let alone a junior one. The bonuses are much larger, but are certainly not guaranteed. So while I might eventually hit the big time executive salaries, chances are good that the 4-7% kind of range would continue. Another consideration is my time, since as a junior executive I’d probably be pulling long hours trying to prove myself. I have grown accustomed to my consulting “8-‘n’-done.”

So if you work in a salaried job and love it or feel that you are gaining valuable experience, feel lucky. But if you are expecting to become rich as a salaried employee, sit down and calculate your raises over the last five years, and honestly assess your chances of becoming an executive at what you do. I think you’ll find that while being employed can maintain your standard of living, it’s unlikely to make you wildly rich.

How can you become rich - and should you want to? Coming soon…

Dell auditors shake things up

As I have mentioned before, my profession of auditing does not seem to be well respected. We do, however, serve a purpose, as was made dazzingly clear Friday:

Dell Inc. will restate its earnings for fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and the first quarter of 2007 after an internal audit found that certain employees had changed corporate account balances in order to meet quarterly financial targets, the company said Thursday.

I want to shed a little bit of light on this subject. I have seen this repeatedly throughout my audit career, and here’s how it works – in very broad terms.

Let’s say I am CFO Bob of the North American division of Massive Corporation. Part of Bob’s compensation is a bonus package that pays Bob $250,000 if he reaches or exceeds certain levels in a formula. The formula may have a half-dozen components – revenue, profits, units sold, whatever. The point is that if Bob reaches his goal he gets big money. He gets player money. If he misses it he may have to settle for the Jag instead of the Bentley, and Bob couldn’t bear that shame at Shady Hills Country Club.

Bob has to hit 8 out of 10 to reach his target in 2004. 2004 is a good year. Bob is confident he will make 9 out of 10 and get his $250,000 bonus. But Bob doesn’t get anything extra for that 9. 8 pays the same as 9. Bob leans back and thinks “well, maybe we should build up our reserves, just in case!” He increases a reserve in a well-funded account - maybe the accounts receivable reserve. This would be similar to you or me throwing another $1,000 in our car emergency account when our new car just passed every single inspection with flying colors.

So 2006 rolls around and Massive has a rough year. The North American division is not doing terribly, but Bob has not met any of his targets. He is at 7 out of 10 and unless he raises it to 8 before the end of the year he’s only going to get $50,000. Bob long ago burned through that 2004 bonus drinking his fine Scotch and keeping his mistress in furs. So Bob needs that 8. He needs it bad. One morning while his assistant is reading his email to him Bob suddenly remembers that reserve money he socked away. The accounts receivable are having a bad year, too. Massive is trying to collect their receivables but a lot of their customers are having troubles, too, and can’t pay Massive. Bob scratches his head and grimaces as a thought forms there. He thinks, “well, maybe I could claim it’s over-reserved.” He knows it isn’t – it was over-reserved in 2004 when times were good, but now that times are bad it’s probably just about right. But it’s a question of judgment and he’s a CFO, after all.

Bob grasps at his chance. He has his accounting staff transfer the reserve money into “extraordinary income” or something else that affects his score, and bingo! Bob makes his 8. Everyone is happy… at least until Bob gets found out by the internal auditors and gets fired. But don’t worry – no matter how much he ran his company into the ground he’ll do just fine.

Obviously, I cannot name names but I have seen this happen many, many times – sometimes blatantly, other times subtly. Once I ended up quitting out of frustration at this practice, because I realized I worked for a crooked company and could not keep working there and keep any self-respect. In Dell’s case, the auditors only gained traction when the SEC started investigating. Often, the auditors report to the CFO on a “functional” basis even though in theory they can go straight to the board (although the board members are probably going out for drinks with the CFO right after board meetings). So if the corruption occurs at the CFO level, it’s hard to fight it.
Think twice before you consider investing in any company that has exhibited this type of behavior. I would not assume, for example, that Dell has fixed the root problem of incentive-driven compensation, since that’s how most corporate employees are compensated in the US. It would be hard to say “no more bonuses - just do your job well!” If there is any type of incentive in the bonus plans – or in commissions or any other type of compensation – human nature will seek a way to make it benefit them. Invest with care!

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