Learning For Results - The BECKON Approach

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Why a Personal Website is much more effective than Resume?

A resume is one dimensional – Work specific.

It does not indicate how you are as a person. Does it? It lists the firms you worked, responsibilities you had and your achievements. Does it tell your potential employers or prospective clients anything about your social intelligence, your integrity or your spiritual inclination? It doesn’t.

If you want to lull yourself to sleep thinking these attributes are not really essential today – in the world of business. Try and remember your experience in detail when you worked with a resource having brilliant credentials and pathetic moral standards. Does it make you feel good about those achievements or recognition? If it does, you are just another common victim of syndicate thinking and herd mentality.

Being human is the God of all strategies.

Anyone who has made it to the top is not because of how well they fit in the existing syndicate thought process but how they distinguish themselves from group thinking and how deeply well connected they are  to themselves, ethically

Those professional smart resume services must have tweaked your personal interests to such an extent that you cannot relate to it any more – Glorifying one of your simple interest to take care of your terrace garden as “Supports Initiative on Environment Conservation”. 

Mincing words is also a serious compromise on integrity.

Most Resumes Are Just Waste of Ink/ words

It takes anywhere between 2 to 6 hours do write a good, honest, customized resume (I know that because I charge my buyers accordingly. My fees are not based on the length of their profile but the amount of crap I have to cut from that document that tells the world today in 2016 what they did in 1989 or when the dinosaurs lived). Relevance is the key word. 

HR Team has barely 7 seconds to see your resume from the tons they receive. It is common sense, if the first page is good enough, that gives them a reason to look at Page 2.

The more senior you are, the more it is critical for you to project different dimensions of your persona. A professional resume has its limitations.

A life by design, not by default!

You are an Engineer by default (Academically).What are you otherwise – A traveler, a family oriented person, a powerful negotiator, a credible environmentalist, a cyclist, a marathon runner, a Karma believer – Do you get the drift?

You are not just the sum total of the roles you had in different companies. You are much more than that. That is why it makes sense to create your own website to highlight how even one service that you offer can fit in various industries and market ecosystem, impacting results positively.

Needless to say, the old thinking that only celebrities have personal website to build their fan following, is really a thing of the past. Anyone whose life is not just job or pay check centric - who lives a life designed by him, not a life that came to him by default due to his academics or conditioning - has more to offer to the world with his combined portfolio of services than just the experience he gathered in work environment. His contribution is many-fold.

What are your potential services?

1. As a volunteer, which firms do you assist for free and how?
2. As a domain expert, how much do you charge to build intern’s career in the same field?
3.  As an Engineer, what projects do you handle independently end to end at a reasonable fee?
4.  As a consultant, what kind of companies do you support, recommend solutions to and own results?
5.  As a network marketer, what products do you endorse or refer to others that help people who are looking forward for your advice?
6.  As a coach, who do you train to brighten their future for a fee?
7.  As a blogger, what topics to you write about?

How much of this will fit in your resume? 

A website can articulate all of these and more. The best thing is - you continue to make it current that encourages prospect to reach out to you for who you are, what you are capable of, what you continue to deliver in different projects and how they will benefit from your services.

Here is a link with step by step instruction on how to create a blog 

To know more about content development for critical web pages based on portfolio of services, blog maintenance in the initial months and tips for effective content selling click here

The Saga of Layoffs

In the medical world, amputation - that is loss of a body part is one last option that is exercised when no other alternative is available and this drastic step is primarily to save life as that is most important under any circumstances – A human life.

In the corporate world, pay-cut, sudden transfers, layoff in phases, letting go off experienced resources or inexperienced fresher in the name of cost cut and poor business performance, challenging individual abilities outside comfort zone is a similar cry for a company’s survival. If X% is not out, 100% can be at stake.

What options do you have being at the receiver’s end?

Jump off the Titanic

The structured lay off after futile efforts by Human Resource to fit you in different departments/ locations might just be your only opportunity to get off the Titanic

If you are an average performer - you know why you are on that first list. If there is no rescue coming for Titanic (read revenue) you can be very sure even the best performers will be on one of those lists soon. So use this option as your life boat to float to safer zones with severance packages and other funds.

Are you an asset or Liability?

As long as you are generating revenue, part of profit making mechanism, billed to client, responsible for sales you will be an asset. Your turn is after the liabilities (support roles) are axed.

It is your call if you want to seek internal job options and remain floating in same waters or test waters elsewhere

Is it your merit or management?

Individual merits are not considered when it is a strategic management decision to layoff. Often when the media reports regarding acquisitions and mergers, overlapping and redundant roles is an inevitable consequence.

The market and your potential employers know why you are seeking change even without you spelling out that the organization is being re-structured. They are aware it is not about your merit (even if you have always been an average performer) but victim of a large scale damage control.

This week, I chose to write on this topic because I had multiple calls from different quarters and different cities on this very issue – seeking advice. I found the most efficient resources lose their calm, doubt their competencies, get apprehensive of job market and affect their decision making.

Dig well when you are not thirsty.

•  Acquire new skills to stay relevant in work market. 
• Build a six month financial buffer for such a contingency.
• Test new skills in multiple platforms and portals to establish an alternative income stream

Based on BECKON Framework, the evaluation and learning road map are first to support your outcomes (income stream) and then assist you to transfer that to others, if you want to scale and build an enterprise or brand as an independent BECKON coach