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In many ways, the keys to your success in business are right at your fingertips - literally. They are the keys on your computer keyboard.

Many people join Groups and Organizations in hopes affiliation will somehow help their careers, create a more visible Internet presence, or help them gain access to knowledge or people who can facilitate their success.

The problem with joining a Group or Organization is you’ll never get anything out of it if you don’t participate.

Even though a Group or Organization might have a large member population, it is an unfortunate reality that many Groups and Organizations actually have very low member participation.

As an example, I was recently asked to speak about building an on-line Internet presence at a Chapter meeting of the British American Business Council (formerly known as the British American Chamber of Commerce). This is one of the oldest organizations around having been formed in the 1950s, and is the largest transatlantic business network, with chapters — and 3,500 member companies — based in more than 20 major business centers throughout North America and the United Kingdom.

The local Chapter Director told me they have about 400 local members. I asked, “How many actually participate?” She responded, “Well typically about 30-40 will show up to a Chapter networking event, and the most we’ve ever had show up at a Chapter event was about 100 members.”

Unfortunately many people find face-to-face meetings to be a bit intimidating from a social perspective.

This can be true especially where someone’s career doesn’t necessarily cause them to interact with a lot of people they don’t actually know on a regular basis.

So how do you change this if you’re one of those less participatory members I’m alluding to (or the Chairman of a Club or Organization with less than optimal member participation)?

Get on your computer, and find out how to participate in your Group or Organization’s on-line forums.

If they don’t have one, then ask the Chapter Chairman to start one. Tell them the organization could leverage the on-line forum in a way that would create more community amongst the membership and draw less participating members into more active but less socially intimidating participation than face to face meetings. As members start participating more on-line, they will be more inclined to participate off-line in face to face meetings where they will actually have the opportunity to meet members they’ve developed relationship with on-line. On-line forums would also bridge the gap between face-to-face events providing continuity to the membership community as well. And if you have the ability to do so, offer up your assistance as an administrator or moderator of the on-line forum. Just think of how many people you could build relationships with on line - through your keyboard - in that role!!

If you want to leverage an existing on-line forum that can support creating a stronger membership community, Ecademy’s Club capability is a great place to start a branded on-line forum for your Group or Organization.

Ecademy will even set it up (for free) so you can charge a nominal fee for membership to make sure you’re going to have enough chips & salsa for all the additional members that are going to show up for your next face-to-face off-line event if you choose.

Happy Networking.

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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Some hiring authorities have had the good fortune of being trained in various interviewing skills. I know I have, both as an executive hiring authority and as an executive recruiter.

One of the most common interviewing techniques, behavioral interviewing, is designed around the premise of past behaviors being some sort of an indicator of future performance. The problem with behavioral interviewing is it focuses on how someone - behaved - in a given historical situation; it doesn’t get into how someone drove an outcome.

Most all professional positions within a corporate hierarchy have a set of business objectives the position is designed to impact or achieve. That set of business objectives logically imply a certain set of capabilities and attributes the individual occupying the position had better possess if they are to have any chance at successfully executing against the business objectives the position is designed to impact or achieve.

What someone has accomplished, or been responsible for, only communicates an individual may or may not possess the requisite scope and scale of experience. It is simply a sanity check to make sure a prospective candidate is not stepping into a role over their head from a scope and scale of responsibility perspective.

Focusing on - how - someone accomplished the business results they have produced tells a hiring authority if the candidate might possess the capabilities and attributes necessary to successfully execute against the business objectives a given position is designed to impact or achieve.

Ultimately, you are hiring - how - someone produces results and - not - what results they have produced.

Example:

Hiring Authority: What - did you produce against your annual quota objective of $100M in revenue?

Candidate: I was able to drive 35% growth and produced $135M in revenue.

Hiring Authority: That is great. That is similar to the growth we believe we can drive (i.e., check in the box). Now tell me, how did you do that?

Candidate: I leveraged my knowledge of strategic sales process and ability to ensure a strategic sales process is implemented an individual contributor level. Specifically, I implemented a standardized strategic sales process, associated process metrics, and deal triage/strategic sales planning process ensuring we were deploying limited resources on opportunities we had the best chance of winning, and cutting bait earlier on those we realized we lacked significant competitive advantage. As a result, we spent more time not losing deals we knew we could win, and less time chasing deals we shouldn’t have been chasing to begin with. The outcome also reinforced the whole process with the individual contributors who became much better at assessing our critical qualifying criteria much earlier in the sales process as a result.

Another Candidate could simply have said: By firing the sales people that didn’t deliver against their forecasted numbers.

For hiring authorities, getting to - how - someone produced a result can be a challenge. Why? Because we live in a world that rewards results - not capabilities and attributes. As a result, most candidates most likely not thought about, and are not used to answering questions about, what capabilities and attributes they leveraged to produce a given business result. Unfortunately, this translates into a typical response to any question asking a candidate how they accomplished an outcome usually being prefaced with “Um, well let’s see, I uh” with a not well thought out response following.

Candidates desiring to make a better interview impression should spend more time assessing how they actually drove the outcomes they are claiming to have driven. This will not only give a candidate more confidence going into an interview, it will also set them up to interview infinitely better. This level of awareness will also enable a candidate to better assess if an opportunity is going to maximize the leverage of their associated unique capabilities and attributes.

Hiring authorities desiring to make better hires should spend more interview time understanding how someone produced all the great results they claim to have produced. This will also blow away the smoke from candidates that really played no role in the outcomes they are claiming to have driven.

The ability to identify if a candidate possesses the capabilities and attributes necessary to successfully execute against the business objectives a given position is designed to impact will ultimately lead to better hiring decisions.

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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Personal Internet presence? Why should I care about a personal Internet presence? I don’t want recruiters bugging me.

Unfortunately, this is what most people early in their professional careers think about a personal Internet presence.

Whether you want recruiters bugging you or not, isn’t the point about being found on the Internet. The point is the world of business is changing rapidly, and the Internet is driving the change. The Internet is about access to, and the ability to communicate, information (i.e., there is a reason the Internet is called “The Information Highway”).

The Internet is the go-to resource more often than ever to find answers to questions that start with: who, what, where, when, why and how.

Being associated with the answers is a good thing in the context of your own professional value proposition. Most certainly, just being associated with the answers isn’t good enough anymore. You need to be visibly associated with the answers. In today’s business reality, that means being associated with the answers via content that can be found on the Internet.

Again, so you ask, “I still don’t get it. Why should I care?”

Answer: Most business professionals at all levels within corporate hierarchies are paid by employers, clients, and customers to contribute towards delivering results. How do we deliver results? We deliver results by solving problems: our employer’s, co-worker’s, client’s and/or customer’s problems.

It is becoming less and less common professionals spend their entire career working for one employer. Too many people let their careers happen to them. It is becoming every more important a professional take personal responsibility over their career advancement versus leaving it up to their employer to advance their career based on merit and/or opportunity.

Create an awareness of your ability to contribute to delivering results drives opportunity - within and outside of your current employer. Create a buzz that causes people to say, “I want that individual on my team.”

This is important when it comes to your next project assignment with your current employer. Being on the best projects often translates into the best pay, the best raise, and exposure to the next best project at your current employer - let alone exposure to your next employment opportunity.

Consequently, employees need to be responsible for their own value proposition, their own brand image, their own PR. Too many professionals make the statement, “I’m not very good at selling and/or marketing myself.” Getting good at selling and marketing yourself has high return on investment in the context of making the most of a professional career prior to retirement.

Leveraging the Internet to create visibility for your skills, abilities, and value proposition is actually simple - no matter how early you are in your career.

Everyone is an expert at something. For individuals early in their careers, it is simply being expert at solving the problems and answering the questions you are faced with every day.

When you find yourself answering the same kinds of questions, or addressing the same category of problems, write them down. Then write about these topics, and publish them on the Internet in blogs or articles. Simply make sure you are being generic enough to make sure you aren’t violating your employer’s non-disclosure agreement.

Take it one step further and don’t simply create Internet content. Actually learn how to create visible content people can find when they do relevant key word/phrase searches in Google and other search engines. The great thing about this learning curve is you don’t need to be a technologist to learn and understand a few basic principles you can leverage to create visible content that effectively establishes your visible personal Internet presence. Anyone can do this.

Leverage content publishing sites:

Example: Networking platforms like Ecademy whose blogging content benefits from high ranking in search engines.

Example: Ezine publishing sites like EzineArticles whose article content benefits from high ranking in search engines.

Combine this with cross linking URLs within content you create, and building key word/phrase association in the search engines by hyperlinking key word/phrases to the URLs of the content you create.

Don’t fail to leverage the Internet to create a visible value proposition. Take ownership of your brand image and PR. By implementing these simple principles, you’ll be building a base of visible content, and as a result, a visible personal Internet presence that will propel your career beyond those who don’t.

Ron Bates is an expert in mission critical retained executive search. He is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. He has delivered personal executive coaching projects to former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, and WorldCom Exec’s responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self guided job search oriented executive coaching process.

With +27,000 direct contacts on on-line professional networking platforms, Ron has been referred to as “the most connected man on Earth”. View Ron’s networking profile on Ecademy.

As a recognized expert in building an on-line personal Internet presence, Ron has been an invited speaker at venues such as the Marketing Executive Networking Group, British America Business Council, Expert Connections, and is a regular guest on Netshare’s “Ask the Coach”.

Ron’s blog: Internet Presence - Do you exist? can be found at http://www.search-advantage.com

For more information on Conducting a Job Search Campaign go to http://www.job-search-campaign.com

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