Podcast
The Reluctant Mentor
Hosted by The Reluctant Mentor · EN
How Baby Boomers and Millenials can Mentor each other in the Modern Workplace
6episodes
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Jennifer Wells – JenniferNicholeWells.com
Sep 1, 201400:30:44Tap to summarizeLew interviews Jennifer Wells this week to talk about her career in photography, her creative use of miniatures in her photographic work that she applied to the cover design for The reluctant Mentor, and of course her experiences with mentoring in the workplace as a young millennial.
Transcribe →How To Avoid Ruining Your Personal Brand with Social Media
Aug 29, 201400:13:40Tap to summarizeSocial media can destroy your personal brand Once when I was in college, a high school friend came down for a weekend and we went out partying. In the process of excessive drinking and the crowds of college weekend binge partying, we got separated. This was in the days before cell phones, so we didn’t have any way of contacting each other. After looking for me all over, my friend (who didn’t drink much) gave up and went to his car to head to my apartment, thinking I had just gone home. When he got to his car, he found me…passed out drunk…on the hood of his car. He poured me into the passenger seat, took me home, and helped me to bed. Our little secret The next morning, I had no memory of the incident, but we both had a good laugh as he told me about it. Except for a few friends we told the story to, it was our little secret. A couple years later, when I began interviewing for jobs in my profession, none of my prospective employers knew anything about my irresponsible behavior. In those dark ages, not only were there no cell phones, there was no internet, and thus, no social media. If there had been, my friend most likely would have taken a quick picture of my awkward slumber with his smart phone, posted it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., and tagged me for the whole world to see…friends, enemies, and prospective employers. Under the hiring radar If we had the internet when I interviewed, those companies could have done a Google search and found all kinds of information about me; including that embarrassing picture of me being an idiot. Fortunately, all they had to go on was my resume, my interviews and the references that I provided. Today, employers have all kinds of resources on which to base their employment decisions. Many employers review each candidate’s social media accounts as a common practice. I’m sure every company has different criteria on how they use social media to make a hiring decision, but there are some best practices anyone should follow to keep a clean social media reputation. For more information, check out <a title="Career Management for Mentors" href="https://thereluctantment...
Transcribe →Is it Professionalism or Old School?
Aug 15, 201400:25:29Tap to summarizeIs it professionalism or old school? One of my favorite binge-watch shows is Mad Men. It’s a well-written and produced television show. I’m also intrigued by the business standards of the day. In that day – the 1960s – men wore suits and were in charge. Women usually played a subservient role. It was considered standard etiquette for a professional to have a well-stocked bar in his office to offer drinks to clients and colleagues. And it was considered proper manners to smoke and carry a lighter to light another person’s cigarette. It seemed like everyone smoked. I sometimes look at those times (which were before my time) and think about how crazy that was. If you were to bring the fictional Don Draper back and provide advice to a new college grad, it would be an interesting sight. While the entry-level worker would marvel at him smoking indoors, he or she also wouldn’t know how to respond to an offer for a whiskey or bourbon. Draper would be just as flummoxed with the new employee’s attire. “What do you think this is Saturday?” Never mind if the newby was a woman expecting to serve in a “man’s role.” The times they are a changin’ Times and customs change. We may not have racial and gender equality yet, but we have come a long way. Thanks to technology and rethinking of traditions, we do so many things differently from how we did things as recently as twenty years ago. If someone from the sixties or seventies came back and gave advice, he would sound like the proverbial grumpy old man. He would wonder where the secretary was to take notes in the meeting. He would expect people to dress in suits and ties. We can pontificate about these hypotheticals of people coming out of the past and comparing their standards to ours today. But it happens every day when a baby boomer finds himself working with a Generation Y worker with his own way of doing things. I often question myself before giving advice to younger employees to determine whether I’m giving good advice on professional behavior or am I being an old fuddy-duddy that is out of touch with the times. Some of the times when I...
Transcribe →Social Media and Your Personal Brand
Jul 4, 201400:35:17Tap to summarizeIt is hard to imagine life before the internet came along. To the current generation that has recently entered – or is planning to enter – the work world, they have never known a world without it. They have seen it evolve to some degree, but it has always been there. To them, Myspace is ancient history. When I graduated from college and was looking for my first career job, it was an internet-free zone. I used newspaper ads and recruiters with whom I communicated solely through phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Email wasn’t even common enough to use. Contrasting that with the job search today makes it seem like a hundred years ago instead of twenty-five. Today, there are online job postings and the ability to submit a resume online for thousands of recruiters to find. When I did my initial job search, it was difficult to brand myself. It was done one resume and cover letter at a time. If the resume caught the employer’s attention, I was called in for an interview or two. If they were still interested, they would check my references. While all three of those items still exist in the hiring process of most organizations, there a many more ways that an individual can brand himself and many more ways that the organization can check out the candidate’s brand. Related post: Why Your Legacy Matters Online branding A resume, in most cases should be no longer than a couple of pages. This requires most people to summarize. However, on LinkedIn, more detail can be supplied, including additional experience, references, and publications. Publications you say? In the dark ages of 1989, one had to submit writings to a magazine or a book publisher. If the writer was unknown, submitting a piece had low odds of being read, and even greater odds at being published. It was a difficult way to brand one’s self. Today, a blog can be started in a matter of minutes. A job candidate can write a weekly blog touting their expertise, creating an instant brand for herself. That blog can be promoted on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and countless other social media networks. Negative branding When I was in college, I will admit that my friends and I did our share of partying. We tailgated at the fo...
Transcribe →5 Things to Do When You Fail
Jun 27, 201400:29:50Tap to summarizeIt doesn’t seem to matter how often I screw up, I never seem to get used to it. I’ve written at length about the benefits of taking risks, not being afraid to fail and learning from your mistakes. It’s just a lot easier to advise it for others than to practice it for myself. No matter how risk averse you are though, things don’t always go our way. When that does happen, mark it up to experience and do your best to learn from it. Here are some tips for making the best of it. Assess the impact. Was it really that bad? You may be embarrassed, and your boss may have even had a private conversation with you. But most mistakes are exaggerated in the minds of the culprits. Put it in perspective. If the impact was large, seek opportunities to reduce the impact. Don’t worry about how you look to others. The main reason most people beat themselves up for mistakes is how foolish they look to their peers. Major League Baseball players make errors on the field in front of thousands – if not millions – of people on a regular basis. They feel like the goat for a few minutes. But like you and I should do, they suck it up and move on. People wouldn’t worry so much about what others think if they knew how rarely others actually thought about them. What could you have done differently? Did you really screw up or was it someone’s perception? People often give feedback in the form of, “That’s not how I’d do it.” It doesn’t mean you screwed up. Maybe they would have screwed it up if they had done it their way. Don’t second guess yourself just because someone questions you. If what you did do was wrong, take some time to think about it. Write it down if it helps. Write down some of the options you could have considered and how you would do it differently with what you’ve learned. Related post: How Changing Your Assumptions Will Make You a Better Mentor How can you apply it to other situations? Now that you know how you would do it differently if the same situation occurs, how can you apply it to other situations? Whether you should have asked for help earlier or you should have notified your boss about an issue, don’t limit your learning to the spe...
Transcribe →Reversing the Roles on Mentoring
Mar 21, 201400:20:05Tap to summarizeDoes your company have a mentoring program? Most companies have some form of program with varying levels of success. At some places, formal policies for mentoring are established. “Bob, you’ll be mentored by Mary”. At other companies it’s just a strong recommendation but it’s not required. They may tell you to just find someone you respect and ask them to be a mentor. In most cases, a more experienced person mentors someone younger with less experience. That generally makes sense. If Mary has worked in her industry for ten years serving in many different roles within the organization, she probably has a lot of knowledge to pass down to the new guy. It makes sense for her to teach him the ins and outs of the organization and any political tips she can clue him in on. Reversing the Roles What if we turned the tables on that model? What if the young guy mentored the seasoned professional? Most people would say something like: “What could an inexperienced college graduate teach someone who is more experienced?” You might even ask “Why would we want to enhance these already large egos?” With any other generation that has ever entered the workforce that would make a lot of sense.. Generation Y is a different story. Generation Y – the Millennials – is the group of people who range in age from their late teens to early thirties. Because of the time period that they grew up, it is are a very unique generation. The Distinction of Generation Y Because of when they were born, they weren’t around for when the internet came into being back in the nineties. They don’t remember when the phones were a kitchen wall attachment. The internet and cellular phones have just always been there. By contrast the Baby Boom generation saw the birth of the internet, its reinvention to web 2.0, and “car phones” which evolved to flip phones and eventually became smart phones. I know a lot of Baby Boomers who still have flip phones. They don’t want all of those fancy apps, they just want to use it to call people. Although most of them are on the internet, many of them have no interest in Twitter or Facebook. Because the millennials grew up with this technology, they aren’t intimidated by it. Most never the classical typing classes many baby boomers took in high school. Yet, they can type faster with their two thumbs than an experienced typist can do with both hands. Bec...
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