Services
Frequently Asked Questions
- 1. What is coaching?
Coaching is a professional partnership to assist you in achieving more fulfilling results in whatever it is that you are pursuing. In addition a life coach also helps you with better work-life integration. Through the process of coaching, you focus on the skills and actions needed to successfully produce personally and professionally purposeful results. If you want to read about the effectiveness of leadership of executive coaching read this definitive article.
- 2. What does the coaching process look like?
In my case coaching begins with an intake questionnaire that makes you reflect on your past and on your behavior patterns that you observe in your own career and life. Together with your résumé, this gives me enough insight about where we can start with making things better This preparation I do on my own before the first session. The first session is then held, either in-person for local clients or by phone for remote clients, to assess your current opportunities and challenges, to define the scope of the coaching relationship, to identify priorities for action, and to establish specific desired outcomes. A plan of action is then established in the first session with clear accountabilities for creating outcomes and timelines. Subsequent coaching sessions are scheduled depending on where the client will need help in moving forward. Between scheduled coaching sessions, you may be asked to complete specific actions that support the achievement of your personally prioritized goals. I generally provide additional resources in the form of my own developed materials, resources, relevant articles, checklists, assessments, or models, to support your thinking and actions. I may also ask to read some books to help you further.
There is enough that comes out of the first session that some clients are able to move forward on their own with re-energized action and outlook. There is no requirement to continue, on a regular schedule, if your constraints do not allow it.
- 3. Where do we meet?
Coaching sessions occur both in-person and over the phone, creating the most flexibility for you. My clients are global, so whatever mode of connection works best is what will be used in each session. Often, email exchanges are equally effective. Sessions are also conducted using the latest available technologies such as Webinars, video conferences, in-person, and on-site workshops for larger groups. CTU’s offices are in Fremont, CA (Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area). The main client office is 39111 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite #201, Fremont, CA 94538.
- 4. What should someone look for when selecting a coach?
There are three Cs of coach selection: Chemistry, Compatibility, and Competency. The first two are critical for a harmonious engagement. Respect for the relationship comes from these two factors. Respect for what the coach has to say comes from the third factor. The most important thing to look for in selecting a coach is someone with whom you feel you can easily relate to and can create the most powerful partnership. Additional considerations include the coach’s experience, client testimonials, coaching success stories, and coaching philosophies.
- 5. How long does a coach work with an individual?
In the case of career coaching the trigger is the realization that something is amiss in your career: a missed promotion, a raise that did not materialize, glass ceiling, repeated lay-offs, and so on. If you have your own venture or business it can be that the business is not growing or that the customers are leaving. In most cases clients begin their engagement with a specific problem and to remedy a specific wrong. In most cases, however, they soon realize that they had been short-changing themselves in how they managed their career and engage with me on an ongoing basis. There is no requirement for a contractual engagement beyond the first session. The length of a coaching partnership varies depending on your needs and preferences. For certain types of focused coaching a few months (2-4 sessions) of working together may be sufficient. For other types of coaching, people may find it beneficial to work for a longer period.
- 6. How do I get started?
Prospective clients first have a brief telecon with Dilip (me), after which the Client Intake Questionnaire (CIQ) is sent along with the Agreement. This Questionnaire is a careful distillation of what information is critical to understanding the prospect’s history and what patterns in this history can be addressed through coaching. Most clients have personally told me how insightful this Questionnaire alone is in how much it brought clarity to their own view of themselves, even before the first meeting.
How long it takes to schedule the first coaching session depends entirely on how fast the prospect responds to the CIQ and any material along with it (resume’, assessments, Annual Reviews), relevant to our first session. For urgent needs, a session can even be set up the next day after the completed CIQ is received.
This first paid meeting then takes place (in-person for local clients and on video or phone for remote clients) and can typically be about two hours ($500). A shorter session carries the remaining time (from two hours) for a follow-up session. During this initial session, you’ll share additional information and what you want to specifically achieve immediately and long-term. We don’t spend this valuable time revisiting the Questionnaire unless there are some items that must be addressed. At the end of this session you will walk away with a plan of action, specific changes you need to make to move forward, and a timeline for next steps. What you want to do beyond that will depend on what you decide is going to work for you and how effective future coaching sessions will be. My own philosophy is to get each client to think for themselves and become independent on their own quickly, using me only as a resource and a sounding board, when they need objective and specific expertise or when they feel stuck.
- 7. How is coaching different from therapy and other interventions?
Career coaching is a distinct service which focuses on your life as it relates to goal setting, outcome creation and personal change management to improve your career. In an effort to understand what a career and life coach is, it can be helpful to distinguish coaching from other professions that provide personal or organizational support.
a) Therapy: Coaching can be distinguished from therapy in a number of ways. First, coaching is a profession that supports personal and professional growth and development based on individual-initiated change in pursuit of specific actionable outcomes. These outcomes are linked to personal or professional success. Coaching is forward moving and future focused. Therapy, on the other hand, deals with healing pain, dysfunction and conflict within an individual or a relationship between two or more individuals. Therapy outcomes often include improved emotional/feeling states. While positive feelings/emotions may be a natural outcome of coaching, the primary focus is on creating actionable strategies for achieving specific goals in one’s work or personal life. The emphasis in a coaching relationship is on action, accountability, and follow-through. Most successful professionals work with several coaches to keep them in top shape. For example, Tiger Woods is known to have several coaches who help him in his game, his spiritual balance, and his physical well-being.
b) Counseling: The process of counseling has a connotation that something needs to be remedied. It is a thereapeutic process where a trained expert counsels their client to correct an observed malfunction or deals with the client’s emotional or psychological problems. Career counseling was term used until about a decade ago, but is now in disuse because of this connotation. Career Coaching is a much more acceptable and neutral term. When counseling is coupled with other intervention (medication) it can be called therapy.
c) Consulting: Consultants may be retained by individuals or organizations for the purpose of accessing specialized expertise. While consulting approaches vary widely, there is often an assumption that the consultant diagnoses problems and prescribes and sometimes implements solutions. In general, the assumption with coaching is that individuals or teams are capable of generating their own solutions, with the coach supplying supportive, discovery-based approaches and frameworks, with sufficient content expertise provided from the coach’s own past.
d) Mentoring: Mentoring, which can be thought of as guiding from one’s own experience or sharing of experience in a specific area of industry or career development, is sometimes confused with coaching. Although some coaches provide mentoring as part of their coaching, that is not their main focus. Typically a mentor is someone you select from your industry, organization, or community from whom to seek guidance and wisdom. Mentoring provides general guidance, whereas coaching can provide very specific actionable guidance.
e) Training: Training programs are based on the acquisition of certain learning objectives as set out by the trainer or instructor. Though objectives are clarified in the coaching process, they are set by the individual or team being coached with guidance provided by the coach. Training also assumes a linear learning path which coincides with an established curriculum. Coaching is less linear without a set curriculum plan.
f) Seeking Guidance: Many professionals seek guidance from their friends and relatives when it comes to making career choices and managing their career. Although this is a good idea because it can help get another perspective—often for free, too much reliance on such advice can be limiting. For one, there is the lack of proper clinical distance between the two, which can cause the party giving advice to give it so in a subjective way or with having their own agenda in how things need to be done. There is also the danger that if the advice is not followed it can damage a good relationship. Also, there is the possibility of lack of expertise. Often, in such cases the advice often smacks of what the person giving advice missed out on for themselves (projection) in a similar situation. When one is in a bind or is confused about which option to choose, there is a tendency to listen to whoever has the most influence on you and to follow their advice, regardless of its merit, sometimes just to please them. This is not always a good idea. Besides, an expert advice often provides value that is worth the money spent on it. Trial and error is the worst way to manage one’s career or life!
- 8. How can I justify the cost of coaching to myself?
Actually, this is the easy part! Most professionals manage their career by trial and error. In each pass valuable time passes and the learning does not always translate into better actions for the next round of experiences. A lost opportunity and its cost can be incalculable when handled in a desultory way. Often we operate from the state of unconscious incompetence (we do not know what we do not know). This is the worst place to be when trying to deal with a new, unknown situation.
Moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence is what a coach can help you do. Once you are in this state then it is much easier to move to the conscious competence and to the ultimate unconscious competence. This final state is where the right behaviors come naturally as a result of productive coaching and disciplined self-awareness. The difference between approaching a career (or life) challenge with the proper mindset and tools and with an unprepared mind can be huge in terms of the price you pay. This price can be a lost opportunity, lost money, or just feeling defeated because you did not know better.
A battered psyche is your worst enemy in a highly competitive world. For a relatively small sum of money one does not have to wonder about this for not having done this correctly. This is the benefit of getting the right coaching and it can be priceless!
- 9. All I really need is a good résumé. How much will it cost me?
To be perfectly clear, I do not do client résumés! Instead, I work with them to re-package their message in a VERY different way!
Clients do most of the work which is critical to the foundation of what I call an Inductive résumé. The client must own how the message is torqued using this VERY different approach. Once clients do this basic work and reach the limit of their ability to elevate their message beyond where it is, then I take it from there and put my magic to the message—this is my own masala.
I help clients in this process depending on their writing skills and to create these Aha! stories about their past leadership accomplishments for a forward-looking message. Highly motivated clients (nearly 10%) use about one hour of my time (after the initial session) to complete the résumé if they do most of this work on their own. Others use my time as they need until they are able to own their message. Typically, it takes me about two to three hours of my time, depending on many factors. Creating a forward-looking résumé is a highly collaborative effort.
For an impactful Inductive résumé this shift in client mindset and their own diligent work to redefine what they did with their own Ahas! are critical. Most professional résumé writers, on the other hand, take your raw inputs and craft the entire message in their own format without adding any substantive value—the soul of a résumé. Merely shuffling around words and prettifying how a résumé looks does not really change how it impacts the reader in seeing differentiated value from a plethora of Jurassic résumés. There are many “before” and “after” examples in my books (e.g.The 7 Keys to a Dream Job: A Career Nirvana Playbook!) of how to transform a message using this approach to writing an Inductive résumé.
The first client meeting is about how to package yourself and about how to present your message that you can market yourself more effectively. A strong verbal brand is a key part of this message. But, this comes only from a shift of client’s mindset. This SHIFT in mindset is critical to generating market traction. Résumé writing and building a marketing campaign follow this task.
If you are looking for someone to merely re-write your historical or backward-looking résumé (I call it a Jurassic résumé) to make it prettier for a few hundred dollars, I am not your answer. Sorry.
Most professionals write historical résumés (backward looking) and the ones that are about what the client has done. What is needed in today’s market is a forward-looking résumé that is not about what the client has done, but about what they can do for the job that is of interest to them. This is what makes a résumé Inductive. This is not easy!
I have many named Recommendations on LinkedIn. I am sure you know some of these people who wrote them. It is best if you talk to them before managing your expectations about engaging me.
- 10. How do I find my passion?
Everybody talks about finding your passion and pursuing it. Such an advice can both be frustrating and futile. Frustrating because if you are not already pursuing something you’re great at you really do not know what your passion is. It is also futile because trial-and-error is not the way to come to your passion station!
Instead, a more practicable approach, especially if you are just starting out in your career, is to engage in something that interests you and then applying all your energies in mastering all that comes your way in challenges, barriers, and creating breakthroughs to achieve something worthwhile, even unique. Pursuing such a path helps you shape your passion and then you own it as yours. You can even become known for it! This strategy applies at ALL stages of a career, even when you’re in your late stages!
Many aspirants also try going through a battery of assessments and exploration camps, most of which do not create any new insights. The most effective way to find your Path is to look internally, engage in some endeavor that interests you and then become the master of that pursuit. This is how you pursue and own your passion.
Career Assessment
Career Assessment can take different forms. The most common is the one where a counselor gives a battery of tests and provides you with their expert view of what you should be pursuing. The problem with this approach is that, often you uncover what you already know about yourself, unless you are at high-school age, where this is your first encounter with such an assessment. Second, the recommendations about what you should pursue can create more confusion than help (for example, “you can be an airline pilot, a surgeon, or an architect because of your analytical skills and creativity,” can leave you confused about what path to now pursue).
A better approach to career assessment (especially for someone, who has been working for a while) is to explore what aspects of their job need to change to move in a more productive direction. Such discussion with an expert helping you with the pros and cons of pursuing a certain path with some objectivity can greatly help to reduce the number of options and can create clarity for looking at a few (two or three) career options. The best direction for changing a career is where you can leverage your existing career momentum and build on it to accelerate your new career. This approach requires someone, who is experienced in both, making such transitions for people, and who is intimately aware of the shifting job market.
The approach Career Transitions Unlimited (CTU) uses for career assessment is a combination of reviewing the client’s responses to the detailed questions in the Client Intake Questionnaire, the discussions with the client during the first (and later) sessions, and a keen awareness of the market trends in most areas of jobs and careers. This is where CTU differentiates itself from almost everyone else in pinpointing just a few options that are highly actionable and productive.
Résumé Development
A CTU Résumé is nothing like what most recognize. There are three factors that totally differentiate a CTU résumé (also known as an Inductive résumé):
- First, it is not about yesterday, but it is about tomorrow;
- Second, it is based on who you (and your genius) are, and not what you merely did in the past, and,
- Finally, your résumé tells its reader your leadership stories that set you apart from everyone else. These stories must have an Aha! factor that immediately points to what your genius is (whenever we engage our genius we create an Aha!)
With this design your résumé shows how you create value for your target companies (including your current one) based on your genius. Looking ahead, this approach to writing your résumé will help you engage in whatever you do differently! It will transform your view of how to engage in your work: from being on it to being in it! It will also give you a license (and confidence) to pursue new–even uncharted–opportunities of your choosing. This is why an Inductive résumé is so valuable in your reinvention or re-engagement! It “induces” the reader to think beyond what is obvious in a typical traditional résumé.
Most traditional résumé writers merely repackage your verbal inputs to make your résumé pretty and graphically appealing. In a tough market this is just not enough these days. A CTU résumé writing process allows you to change your message from your past and allows you to make it forward looking (“tomorrow”)! It “induces” its reader to consider your candidacy based on your message, even though you may not have done what you claim that you want to now do. This is the Inductive part (it “induces.”). Most résumé writers cannot do this effectively.
Contrary to common misapprehension, each one of us has the capacity to operate within our genius when we are in our role, not when we are struggling to deliver what is merely assigned to us or when taking orders from a micromanager, trying to please them. Each one of us operates in the realm of our genius somewhat unconsciously and the tools and rules provided in the CTU approach and process are aimed at capturing that magic. Once you are able to identify and articulate your genius and build a value proposition around it, you are selling yourself based on who you are and not merely on what you have done in the past. This is how you brand yourself—your verbalized genius is your brand with a very different message.
This message can now open up new opportunities otherwise not available to you using the traditional (a backward-looking résumé with a transactional message). Because of this, creating such a résumé takes a level of effort and commitment that are ordinarily not appreciated by those who just want a quick résumé (a Jurassic version)! A CTU résumé, thus created and done well, at once, energizes and instills a level of confidence that is undeniable.
Of course depending on client’s available time, the money investment they are willing to make, and their story-telling skills a budget for completing one résumé can be established, but typically this entire process is highly interactive, involved, and time consuming (compared to whipping out a “Jurassic résumé”). No matter how the work is divided between the client and Dilip, the effort is significantly greater than when using a typical résumé writer, where you hand over your draft version and they create a “marketable” résumé for you in short order.
A well-presented Inductive résumé is an important element of a client’s overall transition plan. For a turnkey transition plan the remaining—and important—elements are: LinkedIn Profile, a solid marketing plan, networking, knowing how to work with recruiters and other professionals, acing the interview, and, finally, finessing an offer with a package that you desire. Your résumé is just one piece of this turnkey effort. So, although a résumé can take much effort and time, the remaining elements that lie ahead are equally important for a great landing!
Career Marketing Plans
To realize the full benefits of the CTU’s Inductive résumé the marketing of your message must take a different approach. Completing a good résumé makes for about 25% of the overall job-search effort, albeit an important one!
Sometimes, clients decide to go on their own after completing this most foundational part of their transition to save themselves costs and time, but often end up frustrating themselves, delaying the outcome, and even vitiating their efforts to make a successful transition. So, if you have time or budget constraints it is best to discuss them first so that a more effective self-driven plan can be outlined.
As you advance in your transition process, it is almost always the little things that make a big difference in creating the right and desirable outcome. Those, who are not familiar with these–and most clients fall in this category–they continue to operate in an “unconscious incompetent” state. This often negates the time and effort investment that they have already made on their Inductive résumé and in the process.
In any case, consistent with the requirements for a successful campaign and transition, the ensuing steps in the job-search process include the following:
- Developing a campaign strategy and coming up with an action plan and a timeline to execute the marketing plan;
- Getting your brand and message up on the social media outlets (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other sites). How this message ties in with your résumé is critical, especially for senior positions (once you have been working for 7-10 years). Also, the LinkedIn Profile needs some special treatment to get you that “pull action” from those searching for people with the skills you highlight in your Profile. Doing both the push (sending résumé) and the pull (people calling you from your online presence) marketing can greatly accelerate your progress to land the right job.
- Tapping into your network and growing that network in a way that helps your LinkedIn standing. Optimizing your Profile narrative to land at the top of a search result with your credentials. Most people do this willy-nilly; losing a major advantage that is free.
- Learning how to write compelling cover letters that differentiate you from the rest.
- Strategically reaching out to decision-makers and hiring managers with an intriguing message to get their attention. Using your résumé/bio to leverage your message depending on the target you choose. Going after jobs that do NOT exist, but approaching the right decision makers with a prospecting message to get their attention.
- Getting coached on using appropriate language to convey your interest at a given job level (remember the saw: what you say drives your pay!);
- Getting coached on doing impactful interviews (visit our Interview Coaching tab)
- Finessing an offer(s) from a pool of interested employers
- Negotiating the offer and final job selection (visit our Job Offers & Raises tab).
Working with CTU will show you the process of launching your campaign and the ongoing effort to manage it, with clear guidance on highlights of what to expect during a well-managed campaign. Sending your CTU résumé using the traditional—Jurassic–methods may result in responses not much different from what you typically experience using the traditional résumé and its associated “spray and pray” submittal. So, you must change how you market yourself, once you have already invested in a compelling message (an Inductive résumé).
Building Executive Presence
There is much mystery around the topic of executive presence. To different people it means different things. In simple terms it can be defined as a person’s ability to command attention and influence others persuasively by their thoughts, leadership, and command of a situation. The following are the main vectors for improving your executive presence:
- How you look
- How you dress
- What you say
- How you say it
How You Look: This factor has to do with your overall energy, confidence, and poise in any situation. Walking with erect posture, relaxed, confident, and smiling is a good way to conquer this vector. In situations that can be intimidating with senior executives in the room and you are conscious of the impression you make among them, your demeanor can make a big difference in how you will be viewed. If you behave in a diffident, deferential, and defeated manner, projecting your inferior station you will soon be gauged as someone who does not belong in that circle. Once formed, such impressions are difficult to overcome. So, if you feel this way, quickly do some mental exercises that assure you of your value and the reason why you are there (this is NOT an accident). If that is difficult, do some physical bodily movements discreetly and trick your brain (and mind) to think that you are part of that elite circle! Your brain cannot differentiate between imagined thoughts and a reality.
How You Dress: Your dress can help you create that first impression that is critical in others looking at you favorably. If you are suddenly thrust into a situation where you feel underdressed, the best strategy is not to bring everyone’s attention to how you are underdressed by not mentioning it (“if I had known this I would have put on my best suit.”). Instead, project confidence and poise to make up for your wardrobe and make them wonder what your station really is. In such situations projecting this behavior often makes others wonder, rather than giving them a predisposed view of your station.
What You Say: In situations where you feel nervous and tense there is a normal tendency to talk too much and say things that do not belong in a conversation, including disparaging yourself. You can diffuse this feeling by learning how to ask questions of important people to get a conversation going. No matter how senior a person is they still like to hear good things about what they have done. So, if you say to the CEO, “your recent interview in the Forbes issue was exceptionally well done. Was that impromptu or scripted?” You will get an enthusiastic response regardless of the answer you get. Also, learn how to listen in a crowded group by focusing on the person in front of your face. Asking questions based on what is being said in the moment can greatly increase your esteem in their minds, which is what you want.
How You Say It: This is where you can make an impression of your mindset more than in any other opportunity. Learning the right words, language, and phrasing are all very central to this element. This is a practiced skill. So, investing some time regularly improving your language, diction, and delivery can help you improve your verbal impact in communicating your ideas or thoughts.
To help clients with specific action plans and to create an ongoing development plan for improving their executive presence CTU has developed a powerful auditing tool pinpointing areas that need attention along seven major themes and 45 different dimensions. This unique audit tool is self-motivating and is self-managed, with some expert guidance, fortified with many commonly-available resources that are easy to use. This tool is often customized to reflect a client’s most pressing gaps in building their executive presence.
Clients that have used this approach have successfully reached the executive suite in their career pursuits.
Career Make-Over
This is the first step in an engagement and there are a variety of avenues to get started. Dilip Saraf has identified 14 categories of transition needs for clients (from the Unemployed to the Fresh Graduates), each with a different starting point and has a unique need. Although some needs are common across a category of clients, each benefits from a different intervention beyond this general need. Additionally, each client has a pace of working with which they feel comfortable. Dilip Saraf works collaboratively to deliver cost-effective solutions in each case. If finances are limited, we’ll work with you to give you the most-needed boost at a price that you can afford; you simply cannot afford to continue doing what is not working, hoping that eventually it would work. In such cases the opportunity cost is enormous and the emotional toll, incalculable. A battered psyche is your worst enemy!
The same holds true for entrepreneurs and business owners/consultants. Dilip Saraf, has owned three highly successful businesses, which he also founded. He regularly speaks at entrepreneurial events. Each of his books is grounded in “interpreneurial” philosophy based on his career and business experiences. We will help you in areas from identifying your venture to marketing it successfully to growing it in ways that fit your needs.
Entrepreneurial Challenges
Entrepreneurial challenges are many—from selecting the right idea to pursue, to fund-raising, to competitive positioning—and they come at you like a torrent as you start dealing with your dream to pursue. Although CTU has helped many entrepreneurial clients throughout various stages of their ventures’ evolutions, the most common ones involve the following in rank order:
- Cofounder conflicts
- Incorporation and timing
- Equity sharing
- Market positioning
- Branding
- Fund raising
- Hiring team members and their equity
- Board formulation
- Legal help
- IPO
Although each topic can be a major discussion by itself, it is best to focus on the most contentious and the most frequently encountered start-up challenge: cofounder conflicts.
This section is focused only on cofounder conflict, although all the other topics that a start-up must deal with can be discussed in a coaching engagement with its context fully fleshed out. The reason for this particular focus is because it is the most frequently encountered conflict at various stages of a start-up, and most entrepreneurs are not equipped to deal with it in a proactive or preventative way. Although cofounder conflicts explode more visibly as the venture gets underway there are telltale signs early in the relationship that can save you much grief downstream.
When two (or more people) come together for a venture they are often blinded by its excitement, promise, and adventure that it offers. As a result, many entrepreneurs jump into it headlong hoping that things will sort out as the venture gets going. This can be fatal.
Why?
A typical start-up has two main players from the get-go. Although there can be more players, all joining in as cofounders, the most common partnership is based on two players with complementary skills coming together to flesh out a concept and to execute that as an entrepreneurial venture. In most cases these two skills are technology and marketing. If each of the cofounders is strong in one professional area complemented by the other, then the partnership can be made to work. This match, however, cannot assure harmony at a personal level. Conflict often arises in overlapping areas, in funding and money issues, use of company resources, and many such matters.
The most effective early-warning system in a partnership is how conflicts first show up in little or insignificant matters. The dominant partner dictates how everything must be done their way. The more accommodating partner may rationalize this by saying to themselves, this is not something significant, so I’ll yield this time. This acquiescence often graduates into an increasingly menacing and unilateral dictates early in a venture’s life, well before any formal agreements are inked, when it is too late. The best approach is to be vigilant from the get-go and to trust your own gut and instincts.
An early partnership precaution is to have a meeting of the minds in how the two are going to share their responsibilities and how they are going to work together. This must be documented along with the venture’s charter and other items. Goals, roles, and procedures must be captured without getting mired into details. So, a one-page document drafted by the players can be a good starting point. It must capture the essentials of how the venture functions and the role of each. In my own experience with dozens of start-ups, very few go through this critical step early in their venture, which can prevent ongoing conflicts or even an otherwise inevitable break-up, as it has happened in many cases.
CTU offers many resources for entrepreneurial clients and is widely networked with successful entrepreneurs. If you want to work with CTU’s one-page Partnership Agreement template, just drop a note from the Contact Page and I’ll be happy to email it to you. Please bring your challenges as you encounter them and I will guide you with the right advice and direct you the right resources.
Interview Coaching
Once you get a call in response to your résumé or from someone looking at your skills to hire you (such as from your LinkedIn Profile, your past association, or from your brand that you have already built) a series of interviews is what decides whether you are going to get that job offer you are after. So, learning how to ace each interview is critical to get the job offer, even if you later decide that you do not want to make that change. A winning interview experience is a great morale booster.
There are three Cs that govern an interview’s outcome: Chemistry, Compatibility, and Competency. Knowing how to manage each one is critical to acing an interview. Often, it is not possible to score perfectly on each of the three Cs. That is where going into each interview with full knowledge of each of the three Cs and how to manage them becomes so critical. Even if you can respond well to all the questions thrown at you (content) during an interview, in the scheme of things, this success merely becomes the Hygiene Factor (correct answers are expected and poor answers disqualify). To create a “wow” factor about you during an interview you must learn how to not only move from acing the Hygiene Factor, but to meeting interviewer expectations and then to exceeding those expectations. This is one of the toughest challenges in an interview.
The CTU interview coaching focuses on all other aspects of interviewing that go beyond the mere Hygiene Factors (the client is responsible coming prepared with the content, as this is expertise focused). Although content questions will be a part of the interview coaching preparation and process, the real focus of this session are all other aspects of interviewing skills such as:
- Body Language
- Managing your responses
- Dealing with difficult interviewers
- Staying in control of the interview
- How to recover from a setback during the interview
- How to follow-up to move to the next stage
- How do deal with difficult questions
- Responding to salary questions
A mock interview session can be about two hours (typically one hour or so) and is video recorded to show the client specific areas of improvement captured during the session. The client is sent the video file for ongoing learning and development. Zoom and other apps allow you to record the file on your own computer as well.
No matter how well they think they respond to interview questions (content expertise), most clients are surprised at how much they did not know about the finer aspects of an interview process (“unconscious incompetence”) once they have gone through this exercise. Most insights come from responding to common questions like, Tell me about yourself (how to do this in just 90 seconds with IMPACT), what are your weaknesses (always start with your strengths), and other such questions.
Dealing with Career Challenges
There are myriad challenges throughout one’s career. Most people deal with them passively, or, worse-yet, through trial and error. Dealing with problems at work this way creates undue and constant stress that erodes their quality of life. Most professionals do not realize that there are effective ways of dealing with most career challenges, regardless of how hopeless they may seem, by approaching them with proper strategy and execution. When you conquer these challenges it gives you a fresh perspective on your career and your life.
Following are some of the more common career challenges clients encounter:
- Stagnant Career
- No salary increases
- Glass ceiling
- Incompetent boss
- Difficult colleagues
- Company in trouble
- Younger boss
- No visibility
- No development plan
- Impending layoffs
These are just a small sampling of what most professionals encounter in their everyday challenges. CTU has provided spot-on guidance and coaching to deal with client challenges and helped them overcome them. If your career challenge is not in the list above you are not alone. We can help you deal with your challenges in ways that will allow you more options than you realized on your own.
Job Offers and Raises
When it comes to salary discussions (including getting their raises) most professionals are convinced that they get what they deserve. They don’t realize that they can get what they negotiate, instead! As a result they often shortchange themselves in how they are compensated. This requires a very different mindset.
Negotiating the salary you deserve or want is not something that is done as an end-run during an offer process. The same applies when it comes to your salary increases. The outcome is often a culmination of a process that starts long before the actual result is created (“we pick our joys and sorrows long before we experience them”—Omar Khayyam).
When accepting a job offer most are anxious to get going and eager to show their new employer what they can do for them as they do their new job. They expect that the new boss will recognize their contribution and make the appropriate adjustment at the end of the first review period to compensate for the original offer shortfall. They are often disappointed when this does not happen. The best (and only) time to ensure that you get compensated for what you deserve is BEFORE you accept that offer by showing the true value of what you bring to the job. Although this must happen throughout the interview process the right time to culminate this is when you counter their offer with what you think is a fair offer in view of the discussions about your value to the company that is hiring you. Once again, this is a mindset that allows you to confidently negotiate what you deserve.
What applies to negotiating the salary also applies to getting the right title as you get that job offer. Most assume that the title they are going to get is what is posted in the open job requisition and the one for which they responded. This, too, is a fallacy. CTU coaching will show you how you can project a different value to the hiring manager and the employer that can open a conversation for a higher or different title than what is posted.
Remember, the best time to get the right salary package and the right title is BEFORE you accept that job offer, and not afterwards. CTU’s coaching process will guide you through this often-ignored—but critical–aspect of a new job landing. We’ll coach you how to shift your focus from title and salary to responsibilities and value during these critical negotiations, so you get what you truly deserve.
Presentation Secrets
One of the most underrated leadership skills is effective communication. This broad area
includes, speaking, writing, presenting, and persuasive arguments to win your point of view(PoV). In this section the focus is on effective presentations.
Here’s a summary of some tactics and habits you can consider making your presentation
memorable:
- Launch with a hook NOT an introduction: Most start with “I’m excited to be here today…” and lose the audience. Instead, grab them by some stunning fact: This department is losing 15% of its employees each year and we don’t even bother to find its root-cause.
- Start with the End: This is also called the pyramid principle. Lead with the conclusion and then the build-up to show how you came to that conclusion.
- Tell a story not just facts: People remember stories not facts. So, in this case bring up a recent exit interview detailing why people are leaving us. Tell her story to let the audience understand something they can relate to.
- Remember the four Ps: During your presentation the four Ps that greatly increase the impact of your message are, Pitch, Pause, Pace, and Prosody (rhythmic use of language). Vary your pitch to highlight key points, pause between key points to let them sink in, and pace your delivery so that you do not sound like a monotone. Prosody has to do with how you vary your sentence length, structure, and use rhythm to keep their interest.
- Use Contrast and Surprise: Our brain is wired for surprise and novelty. Sprinkle various elements of surprise and fresh content to keep audience interest.
- Make it visual: Audience remembers metaphors and images. So, instead of telling them how much power your product delivers, show a rocket next to a propeller airplane.
- Less is More: Do not cram your content with cluttered data and details. Make few points with cogent argument. Humor often helps the audience remember your main points.
- Callback Technique: During your presentation bring back something central that you said in the beginning to emphasize its importance.
- Body Language: Your physical vocabulary (your stance, gestures, intonation) carries more impact than the words you use in your delivery. Practice power stances as you memorize your script.
- Make your Audience the Hero: Your presentation is about the audience and what you want them to act on. Make your script and examples relatable to the audience you’re addressing.