Lately, we’ve gotten lots of questions from our 28,000+ members about our interviewing series. Because of the uncertainties many are facing today, we thought it might be helpful to return to our guidance on interviewing.

Horstman’s 3rd Law of Interviewing: We’ll Take 90% Less Ability for 10% More Attitude Every Day of the Week.

When the market is tighter than normal (it’s mostly supply‐driven and not demand‐ based right now), organizations are even more particular about hiring the very best they can find. Sure, hiring companies want great backgrounds, with great accomplishments. But if you’re interviewing in the next six months, what ability do you have to change your accomplishments?

What you can change is your preparation, and your attitude of energy and enthusiasm in the interview.

As we like to say, here’s how.

Members and friends:

In light of the recent market turmoil, we want to share our Layoff Immunization and Getting Fired shownotes and slides with everyone. While this is premium content, this is one of those times where generosity is called for.

We’ve included notes and slides from two shows: The Layoff Immunization show, and Getting Laid Off - Part 1 - Finances Rule. (Lest you think we’re holding back parts 2+, they’re not published yet).

Please find the shows and files here.

If you’re not affected, great. If you know someone who is worried about their future, share these documents with them freely, with our complements and best wishes.

Being a manager means caring for others. It’s a privilege to serve you all.

Mike and Mark

This cast describes steps to take when you realize early in a job that you don’t like it.

One of the things that has changed as individuals have had to take over their own career management is more mistakes made by younger professionals. Years ago, larger organizations had a more complete HR approach, and managed their employees’ careers. No longer. Now, younger associates don’t have an HR advisor to turn to, or if they do the advisor is unlikely to have solid recommendations for them (or worse, they tell several people of the problem). More experienced managers and executives are often caught off-guard by the mistakes of their junior team members.

So, what to do? Well, first, we recommend you shut up about it.

Podcast Awards Nominations are open at PodcastAwards.com. We would love to repeat for the third year in a row in the Business Category. We think this award has helped us grow the community of managers who are developing themselves and their directs.

Ideally, you’ll just click the link on the top left of our home page. Clicks on that banner help our efforts as well. Last year, we generated more “banner clicks” than any other site in the awards.

Nominations are 40% of the total scoring, so please don’t think “I’ll just wait to vote, versus nominating”. And, you can only submit the form one time, so if you have several podcasts you want to nominate, you have to do so all at once. If you are so inclined, you CAN nominate us in both Business and in People’s Choice.

Nominations close at the end of the day, September 30th.

Thanks for your support. It’s a privilege to serve the growing community of Manager Tools managers.

In case you had any doubts about how right we were - even though we were pretty severe - in our MySpace cast, you can put those thoughts to rest.

Member Sam Baskinger sent this link to a CareerBuilder article, and it puts paid to any thought that you might be able to get away with a less than professional online presence.

It seems that in the career market, where you’re the seller, it’s Caveat Venditor.

Thanks Sam!

We’ve increased the price for our resume review service to $100.

We’ve gone way past the 90-day introductory discount period (we started in April). We’ve gotten close to 200 requests, and Wendii’s workload and quality deserves more compensation.

If you’re thinking about whether you need a review or not, or what you’ll get from it, consider these comments:

Wendii,

I have owned my own business for the last 18 years, and as a company we
strive to provide our customers value added service above the quoted
descriptions and beyond their expectations. However, I have rarely found it reciprocated. In fact, in those same years I have felt that only two
companies have served us with that same courtesy.

The first was only two years ago. There was an insurance company
representative that approached us to win over our company liability,
building, vehicles, etc. insurance (I was skeptical). However, he dove into
our company to understand what was required, needed, and desired and in the end saved us 60% and offered better products. In fact he pointed out how our current insurance company had cut corners and if we had an incident would have made us liable instead of being covered. Then just before we anticipated receiving the paperwork to sign, he contacted us again and informed us that they found another area that would save a few more dollars. It was incredible! I have never seen a sale representative work so hard to save us money, especially after the “deal was done”. Then he turned us on to a healthcare provider that sold the same health insurance we currently carried but at a lower level due to their leaner internal structure. Then he turned us on to a company that saved us 30% on our personal homeowner’s again w/slightly better coverage. What an example of exceptional service beyond our expectations.

And now I would have to list Manager Tools resume reviewing service to my list as the second company to exceed my expectations. I am very impressed with the quality, attention to detail and professionalism (which is everything in a resume), the overwhelming sense that you truly want to help us achieve our best resume possible and the willingness to take that above and beyond the reasonable expectations of the service. Thanks again for your help and comments. It’s good to know that in my future career development that my resume won’t be a liability but an asset to the process.

Thanks again,

Paul Parks

I talked about Wendii and how exceptional she was at our San Antonio conference recently. Luckily, some members shared those comments with her. She’s the best at this of anyone I know, and her recommendations are worth far more than our new price.

This cast describes a simple verbal tool for addressing tension, conflict or other ineffective emotions in the workplace.

Mark has finally gotten around to writing this cast down! Every time Mark teaches this technique to an executive or manager, he turns to Mike and says, “we gotta make this a cast.” And then he doesn’t. When you see this work the first time, you’ll be surprised. In almost any situation, you’ll see a noticeable lessening of the tension. You’ll probably also feel better at moving forward PAST the frustration or difficulties that are being discussed. When you use this with your directs, it often helps begin the process of solution finding.

And to our good friend Rich Ruh, who told Mark this past week at our San Antonio conference that after reading Peter Drucker he was more comfortable around Mark because he realized all these great ideas weren’t Mark’s alone . . . Mark didn’t make this one up either. ;‐)

We’d like members and listeners to send us candid photos of your workspaces, to be used as background images for our website.

Our web redesign uses certain photographs that illustrate and illuminate the day to day life of managers everywhere. We’ve chosen a very real, candid, even almost gritty approach - there will be no models used, we can assure you. We’ve identified many great images, but we also think that perhaps the best images of real managerial and professional life will be of - get this - actual real life managers and real work spaces.

Like yours.

So, we’re asking you to email us pictures of your workspace and your management life. Here’s some guidance:

1. No poses. Everybody can see that when it’s done, and we don’t want it. That means no smiling group pictures, no headshots, etc. (small caveat: you’re welcome to send those, as we’d love to see and hear from you..but we won’t use them on the site.) We want REAL.

2. Usually, we want people in the shots. Ideally, people working, and actually doing real work rather than appearing to be working for a photo. Meetings are great - empty meeting rooms not. Outside is fine, if that’s where you work, and airports too, if you’re there a lot.

3. Some non-people images could work: long shots of a cubicle farm, a big pile of paper, a coffee-stained blotter, a whiteboard with actual work on it. That said, we’ll lean towards people shots.

4. We’re going to recognize the member who sends in a photo. If we use it, it will include your name if you want, with something like, “submitted by…”

5. Quality does matter some. A photo from your cell phone probably isn’t usable on the site.

6. Your submission means that you’ve obtained the release of those people in the photo.

We can’t wait to see what we get!

This cast includes Part 4 of our discussion on how to implement the Manager Tools’ Management Trinity (One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching).

We don’t generally “market” our corporate client work, but after we posted our 2009 schedule and mentioned on-site conferences, we got numerous requests about them.

Yes, we do deliver the Effective Manager Conference on-site to organizational clients. Here are the basics:

Content: We deliver the 2-day Effective Manager Conference. We teach and then lead practice in the Management Trinity: One on Ones, Feedback, Coaching, and Delegation. We also cover Performance Management and Rolling Out The Trinity.

Customization: We will discuss your company’s culture, industry, structure, and attendees’ needs with you in advance. This allows us to spend more time on some areas of the Trinity than others. We stick to the Trinity 95% of the time.

Cost: $30,000 plus reasonable travel expenses. (see more in Cost/Benefit below)

Scope: We limit the 2 days to 25 managers, to maintain the personal attention of the conferences.

Scheduling: We need 60 days notice (though there are exceptions). Our schedules are usually the limiting factor.

Cost/Benefit: We generally start recommending the on-site option when companies have 15 or more managers to send to one or more EMC’s - that’s about break-even. Consider the savings for 20 managers: At $1,600 early registration fee, that’s $32,000. If you assume $300 airfare, and $300 hotel, that’s $600 travel costs per attendee, totaling $12,000 more. Total CASH costs for 20 managers to attend a scheduled EMC is $44,000, versus the $30,000 on-site investment. And 25 managers attending a scheduled EMC would be $55,000. And of course none of this math takes into account the opportunity costs of travel.

To start the process, just send us an email.