During a meeting the other day, one of the participants used the metaphor but went on to say that while people recognise they have the elephant they do not necessarily stop and look at how big it is (the size and shape of the task in hand). That got me thinking and the following eating/food metaphors came to mind around goal setting and achievement, that even if they only raise a smile with you, I thought I’d share…

When you stare at your elephant and think how you are going to consume it all, perhaps you could consider the following possibilities

How many sittings might you need?
- How many individual tasks do you need to complete?

What parts are perishable and must be consumed within a specific time and which can be treated (cured) so that they can be snacked on when you feel peckish?
- What has a definite timing points that must be met and what can be done by regular/routine activity?

What different meal options could you try?
Roasting, flash frying, BBQ, pot roast… After all be pretty boring eating the same meal every sitting.
- What different possible ways are there of dealing with the task?

Where can you find the recipes? – books, chefs (experts), websites, friends, colleagues…
Where might you be able to find information on the different options and expertise for executing it?

How about inviting some guests over for a dinner party to share the feast?
- Who can you ‘invite’ (involve) to help you get the tasks done?
- How will you go about inviting them?

What will the celebratory meal be (not elephant) when you’ve polished of the pachyderm?
- How will you celebrate success? What will you look forward to when you’ve finished the task?

Be great to have your comments…

So, on that note I will make sure that I have
1. backed up the site regularly
2. copies of all the posts and pages in other applications

As my old Sergeant Major used to say “First time’s a mistake, second time’s a habit”

Hope you’ll join me on the journey as I create and develop this new blog.

I have chosen to BLISS, the charity for babies born too soon, too small, too sick. There are so many worthy charities and causes out there, however, BLISS is one close to my heart.

Virgin London Marathon – Why I’m running for BLISS

I have chosen to run for BLISS because my own daughter was born prematurely in April 1999. She will be 12, a week or two before the London Marathon. All in all, our family was cared for by the neonatal and special care baby units at Warwick Hospital. My daughter was born at 32 weeks, weighing 3lbs 2oz; luckily apart from the earliness of her birth she was well in all aspects because of the care received. She has subsequently grown into a healthy and happy young lady.

There were many who were not so fortunate, their children being born very early and suffering some form of long-standing health problems or disability. However, in years gone by none of us may have expected to have a child survive that had been so early.

I also know many people that have benefitted from the care given by special care and neo-natal units, I want to give something back; I would like more people to enjoy the outcomes that I have, a happy and healthy child

Running for BLISS in the London Marathon – will you sponsor me?

There are many calls on you and your finances, however, if you can spare a small amount and would consider sponsoring me to run my first marathon, the Virgin London Marathon, I would be extremely grateful. I have set up a
Justgiving page at http://www.justgiving.com/robjcameron-VLM11

Thank you. Bring on 17th April 2011 and the 2011 Virgin London Marathon

I started off writing a blog about meetings and meeting etiquette. The background to that being that I was invited to a meeting last week where I had to make a special effort to get there, only to find that the meeting chair then totally disrespected the efforts the other attendees and I had made to attend and our collective time, by taking a stream of phone calls. It was only a 30 minute meeting, I wouldn’t have minded if any of the calls were emergencies that can be forgiven; but they were not, so surely the items discussed could have waited 15 – 20 minutes. What is it about phones ringing that makes them so urgent to answer? Urgency addiction? I am sure the person involved would find it extremely rude if I had kept taking calls during ‘their’ meeting.

I make a point of when I am talking to someone in person, unless it is an EMERGENCY, not to answer my phone immediatley; I find it impolite or even rude when it is done to me. If it is an important call, I can then make my apologies to the person I am talking to and return the call. I always ring the person back who has called as soon as I can; With voicemail, missed call lists etc, it is easy to get back to people quickly isn’t it.

Anyway, it was as I started to thumb through some books on meeting etiquette and running effective meetings, I came across a paragraph in “How to Save Time and Money by Managing Meetings Effectively” paragraph 44, by Andy Gilbert and Rob Smith at GoMAD Thinking

Ensure that you have an appropriate role model… someone who displays the qualities that are necessary..

This led me to think a little more broadly. How often do we role model the behaviours we want to see?Or is it easier to fall into the “Don’t do as I do, do as I say” trap? Something to think about? Some seem to have behaviours that are so ‘hardwired’ that they seem to be oblivious to the impact that their behaviours have on others around them; as would seem to be the case with the incident that caused me to write this post.

I like to think that I demonstrate the behaviours that I value, that I role model them. However, I cannot be the judge of whether that is what other people see in me or perceive. Only those people that know me or who interact with me can judge that. But as Ghandi put it

Be the change that you want to see in the world

photo credit: Luiz Fernando / Sonia Maria

Pushing the boundaries…

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that over the past year or so I have set myself some personal challenges associated with running. As a kid and even into my adult years I have never been a fan of running and ofter went out of my way to avoid it at all costs. However, I felt I needed to do something to improve my health and fitness a couple of years ago and decided to do a bit of jogging.

To give myself something to aim for I entered the Birmingham Half Marathon last October and successfully completed it. During the time I was training for the half marathon, I had to continually up my game, run more miles every week and my long run increased in length regularly. Subsequently, I was chosed to participate in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon; another big step forward. I wrote just over a month ago about kicking off my training and the reasons why I was running the marathon, Let the fun begin….

Yesterday marked a new personal milestone for me, I ran the furthest distance I have ever run – 14 miles. Not bad for someone who hated running, who before last year had never ventured beyond 6. However, it doesn’t stop there… soon, as part of my training I will be running 16, 18 and 20 miles and then on April 17th 2011 the big one itself…26.2 miles

All very interesting you might say, however, I would like to bring out the ‘moral’ behind the story. Setting yourself ‘stretchy’ goals (run the London Marathon), having a plan of how you are going to achieve them (training plan), having the desire and motivation to achieve them can lead to you breaking through boundaries and achieving things that perhaps you thought were beyond your reach. It also really helps to tell other people what you want to do and build up some ‘social contracts’; I would like to thank all of those around me, via this blog, Twitter, Facebook, at work etc for all of their help, encouragement and support. If you’d have asked me 2 or 3 years ago if I could run a half marathon, let alone a marathon, I would of laughed my socks off… but here we are, I’ve done one and I am confident that on Sunday April 17th 2011 I will complete the London Marathon.

Now you may not want to run a marathon, but the same approach can be applied to whatever you want to achieve.

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun

John Lennon – Happy Christmas (War Is Over)

A time for reflection and new starts

This time of year presents a ‘natural’ hiatus to the usual routines of the year and with the New Year comes a traditional point for new starts and resolutions. Not that is this is necessarily the only time we should; I tend to think that perhaps you should be continually renewing, focussing on and setting yourself new challenges and goals. However, traditions are what they are…

2010, How was it for you?

In the sentiment of the second line above… here are a few questions that I pose for you to do your own reflection and review…

As you look back over 2010…

1. What have you achieved?
2. Which of the goals or resolutions that you set off into the year with have you actually achieved?
3. What behaviours, characteristics, strengths did you use to achieve these things?
4. What have you learnt as a result of these achievements?
5. What did not go so well? What did you not achieve that you set out to do?
6. What stopped you? (behaviours, characteristics, weaknesses)
7. what can you learn from that? What can you do to tackle those so that they do not stop you in the future?
8. What would you do differently next time?
9. Where did you really surprise yourself?
10. What is your biggest achievement of 2010 and how are you going to celebrate it?

2011, What are you going to do?

2011 is rapidly approaching, have you thought about what you want to do, what you want to achieve, what you want to have? The new year is just round the corner… using a selection of the questions above, imagine yourself at this time next year as you reflect on 2011 what do you want the answers to these questions to be?

1. What have I achieved?
2. Which of the goals or resolutions that I set off into the year with have I actually achieved?
3. What behaviours, characteristics, strengths did I demonstrate to achieve them?
4. What have I learnt as a result of these achievements?
5. Where did I really surprise myself?
6. What is my biggest achievement of 2011 and how am I going to celebrate it?

Think big, think about what you would do if success was guaranteed. Which reminds me of the inaugaration speech that Nelson Mandela gave, the part I want to draw to your attention is this

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?… Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory… that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others

Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, Harper Collins, 1992. Chapter 7, Section 3 (Pg. 190-191)

These things are there for the taking, as John Lennon says in the last but one line of the song above “If you want it”

With that I will sign off and wish you a happy and restful festive period. If you celebrate Christmas have a very happy one, if not enjoy the time that this season presents to spend time with family and friends. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. To your happy and prosperous New Year!

Selection processes

Depending on the industry in which a position exists and seniority of the position, the selection processes used may vary widely. However, there are some commonly used methods to filter candidates; some of these such as application or CV screening may take place before you are involved more formally in the process.

Possible selection processes

Some of the potential selection processes that you may encounter are listed below:

• Telephone screening interviews – used to screen candidates before inviting them onto the next stage of the selection process. Questions are likely to be similar to those that would be asked face-to-face.
• Reasoning or aptitude tests – can come in many different forms such as mathematical or verbal reasoning, problem solving, types of intelligence or key skills testing. These are usually run under strict time conditions and require you to correctly answer questions. Many will provide a result that compares you to a representative population
• Personality tests – by assessing areas such as values, motivation and beliefs these tests look to explore your behaviours, how you do things, way of thinking etc. They are then used to assess how well your personality matches the softer skills of the role.
• Presentations- a presentation may be used as part of the selection process for several purposes:
  • see how you present yourself
  • to find out how you react in a pressured situation
  • assess your ability to research topic areas and present concise findings, arguments or recommendations
• Interviews – there are numerous types of interview and approaches to interviews. However, they are used to assess skills and competency matches to the role, look at you as a person, how you react in a stressful situation, present yourself etc. However, they may also present you with the opportunity to market yourself and find out more about the company and role.
• Assessment Centres – an event, not a location. Generally, these are a combination of activities to test your suitability for the role and the organisation that you have applied for. Typical activities could include an individual problem solving exercise, a group exercise and an interview

In upcoming posts, I will share more information on some of these selection processes.

Virgin London Marathon

Let the fun begin…

About a year and half ago I started to do some jogging again, having not run for about ten years, to improve my general fitness. I wrote a guest post for the Project PeopleRun if you want to know a bit more about that journey, you can read that here. For those who are regular readers of my blog or have seen my twitter stream you will know that I built up to running the EDF Birmingham Half Marathon in October 2010, as a personal challenge/motivation and to put a long standing ‘ghost’ to bed. Now on to the next challenge…

Virgin London Marathon

Back in May this year (2010) a small group of people I have ‘met’ on Twitter (some I have also had the pleasure of meeting in person) decided we would all apply for places in the 2011 Virgin London Marathon; amongst them were Paul Weston (@paulweston33) and Hannah Coleman (@dreamwalls). The ballot was to take place in early October, we all waited with anticipation to see if we have been successful (the ballot ratio as I understand it is about 1 in 6 are successful). As it turned out, I was the successful one in our group of 5 or 6. When the letter arrived telling me of the success, I was immediately filled with excitement… and then the ‘size’ of the task ahead started to kick in. That’s a normal enough response and I know with the correct training and the support of my family, friends and you I am going to be successful.

Running for Bliss

As soon as I secured my place on the London Marathon, I started to think about who I should run ‘for’ in terms of a charity. There are som many great causes out there. Having lost three relatives to Cancer this year, that perhaps would have been the first choice. However, within a couple days of the ballot I was contacted by Bliss the charity that provides support for premature babies; their strapline “For babies who are born too soon, too small, too sick”. This struck a chord with me, as my own daughter had been born prematurely and it seemed fitting that I could ‘repay’ in some small way for the wonderful care she got in our local Special Care Baby Unit and the support we got until she was big enough to come home. We were very lucky, apart from being too small to come home straight away my daughter was healthy. While she was in we met with many other parents who were less lucky, whose children were poorly and needed even more care. Once again the support and professionalism I saw was great.

Training

I will be kicking off an 18 week training programme this week (w/b 13th December 2010) and will keep you regularly posted on my progress. As with the half marathon training, I will also post training updates on Posterous. This is a commitment and like it says at the bottom of this page… honour your commitments!

I hope you will come along with me on the journey and provide support and encouragement to help me “Honour every commitment. Keep every promise. Achieve every goal.”

What is the purpose of a covering letter in career management?

Alongside the application form or CV that it accompanies, the primary purpose of a covering letter within your career management campaign is to get you an interview. To have the maximum opportunity to do that there are some things you need to consider, we will cover those below.

Key aspects of a covering letter

The covering letter is likely to be one of the first things that a recruiter will see, therefore, if you want the opportunity to get an interview your covering letter needs to make an instant impression; a good one of course. To do that it must be well written and well presented. The content will be covered below. As for presentation the letter should be well laid out, printed on quality paper and use consistent fonts to those on your CV or application form (where you complete the form electronically).

Covering letter content

Whilst actual presentation formats may vary the key content structure is the same, that being three primary sections.

1. Introductory paragraph
2. Why you believe you should be considered
3. Closing statements

Let’s look at these in a little more detail.

Introductory paragraph

Within this paragraph you tell the employer why you are writing, generally this will be to apply for an open position. To that end, you then state the job title, reference number (if one is given) and in name & date of the publication where you saw the advert. You may also wish to consider providing a one sentence summary as to why you think that you are a suitable candidate.

Why you believe you should be considered

This is the section where you tell the recruiter in solid terms why you believe you are suited to the job. Now, this is where you reference the prior two posts mentioned above. From the analysis of the job advert you will now have the key job and people specifications. From your self and accomplishment analysis you will have some strengths and success stories to compare and match to the job and people specs.

Within this area of the letter, you craft the narrative of how your strengths/successes match the recruiter’s key requirements or you can present your suitability against key requirements in the form of a table; whichever feels most comfortable to you. It is likely you will need to cover a selection of them, it is not necessary to cover them all.

Closing statements

The general close to the covering letter is to state how enthusiastic you are about the position and how much you are looking forward to the opportunity to meet and discuss the role further.

A final thought

Make sure that you use strong statements and positive language when writing you covering letter.

photo credit: zigazou76