The elephant in the interview room

These thoughts are the culmination of listening to months of my friends’ yammering about their troubles at work, reading what ppl write on blogs and observing some live interviews in my dad’s company.

I dedicate this post to everyone who unconsciously sabotage their careers from day one.

All rightie, here goes.

Would you marry someone who shows signs of cluelessness, deceptiveness or abuse? Or someone whose life is clearly in a mess?

If you did, is it because you think you can change them? Or because you’re so desperate that any partner will do?

And yet this is what people do. They join companies that have a terrible work culture, that’s myopic, whose products are all messed up, whose people are heading for the exit.

What if I told you that all these things are evident on the first day of contact – in the interview room? Did you see it?

An interview is not just for a company to check you out. Its also for you to check them out. While they can reject you for any number of reasons, you can also reject them for any number of reasons.

Everyone I know grumbles about low pay, idiotic bosses, cunning colleagues, the stupid system but interestingly, nobody asks why they never saw it coming when they signed up. Helloow… what’s wrong with this picture? Simple answer: it never crossed their minds to find out.

The value of your degree

We hear it every year. Someone who never went to school makes it to the list of top 10 richest men in the country. And then you look at your miserable degree on the wall, the stack of overdue bills and wonder what went wrong.

From young we’re trained to study hard, get a job, secure a happy future. But things are not adding up and you suspect there’s more to it than that.

I don’t read the get rich guru books (wanna recommend any good ones? ) but if being filthy rich is your target, I don’t think any of them will recommend a 9-5 career. How do I know? Lets do the math.

Lets assume you just graduated and your degree allows you to sell your time (via employment) at $120 a day. In 1 month @25 working days you’re paid $3,000. In 1 year you get $36k.

Now let’s assume you get a 15% salary increase every year for the next 15 years after which your salary peaks at $25k a month. In 30 years you would have been paid roughly $6.2 million for your time. By then you’re near retirement age.

Knock off half of the $6.2 million for taxes, insurance, education for the kids in that 30 years and you’re left with about $3 million.

Knock off half of that for buying 2 houses and the 5-6 cars you would have owned in those 30 years and you’re left with $1.5 million.

How to ask for a raise

Boy is this going to be career week for me or what. I seem to be writing a lot about office stuff.

I had teh tarik with a friend last night. He’d just quit his job over differences with his boss. Basically he’s sore about not getting the raise and bonus he expected, something that had been eating him since January. He’s lucky to get a new job offer which he grabbed without hesitation.

I’ve had a couple of such friends before and through these midnight sessions learned a few things about how to ask more moolah from the boss.

From what I’ve been hearing, asking for a raise is a negotiation skill. You need a couple of things in your toolbag.

Firstly, you need to know if your company is making enough money to actually pay the increase. You know what I’m going to say if you’re working for a loss-making company right? You can thank your lucky stars you still have a job.

Secondly, find out if your boss actually has the power to grant you a raise. If your a junior engineer reporting to the senior engineer who reports to the secton head who reports to bla bla bla, then your immediate boss has just about enough power to buy a box of paper clips. Go find out who to negotiate with.

Thirdly, you need to know precisely what it takes for them to give you a raise. Its a bit naive to think that the more glowing your appraisal form, the higher your raise will be. The form just rats on talent not attitude. Things like quality of judgement and management style will not appear in it but often carry heavier weight when they consider for pay raises and promotions. Don’t ask me why they never put it in the form.

So with these in mind, you walk up to your boss or whoever can give you the raise and ask him point blank, “Boss, if I can give you these 3 things by December, will you give me a raise?” Duke it out with him personally not thru e-mail and lay out the precise terms. Don’t let it go without an answer. Learn to be assertive, dammit. Then hold him to it. After that you can e-mail him on this little agreement as confirmation of the deal and then re-mail it to him at apparisal time as a reminder. If you delivered and he doesn’t, you can go ahead and kick him in the nuts.

There. Simple isn’t it. Since I’m at it I might as well tell you how a raise will almost certinaly not come to you.

1. Expecting that you deserve a raise. Although many companies may claim that if you perform, you’ll get a raise, the dark truth is that much of it is discretionary. I’ve heard of directors shooting down increment and bonus plans even when everybody performs. Obfuscation is just one of the realities of the working world which is why I shy away with a 10-foot pole.

2. Believing too much in the almighty appraisal form. Like I said, they can score you excellent in every category and still give you a measly 2% increment just like the next guy who’s producing half as much as you do. The reason may be as per #1.

3. Believing that the boss can read your mind and that by dropping hints, he will get your drift. In reality while you’re sending him these telepathic thoughts, he may be thinking what to have for lunch or why is that printer light blinking. So why do you blame him when he is clueless about your desperation for a raise.

4. Believing you can arm-twist your boss into giving you a raise. You know, being cynical, going MIA (missing in action), stonewalling, and generally biting the hand that feeds you. And you do this because you believe you’re irreplacable and he will have to kow tow to avoid losing you. Well unless your boss is your husband or wife, I can assure you it’ll backfire. I can’t believe one of my friends actually tried this. He failed.

Oh, last words. When you strike a deal with your boss, do it months in advance of the salary revision. And do it when he’s in a good mood, it always turns out better.

Why aren’t you promoted?

One of the fine blogs I like to read is Kathiroly Raj’s Wise Life Advice. Maybe it has something to do with my past life I dunno but I can relate to the articles he writes.

His latest entry is about why people don’t get promoted. Although I’m not employed in the traditional sense of the word, I do have some opportunities to peek into that world. Since this is gonna be a bit long to write it in Kathi’s comments section, I guess I’ll just do it here.

Going by what I see, the scenario Kathi paints is a common one. You’re the quiet type who work your butt off. You come in early and stay late every day, maybe even skipping lunches to meet deadlines. Your boss has no complaints about you and habitually pats you on the back for a job well done. But that’s where it ends. You get passed over for promotion every time by someone who talks more and delivers less. Feeling frustrated and betrayed, you think of resigning.

If you’re in this situation, I think you’re victim to one of the greatest fallacies of the workplace, one that many companies want you to believe, and that is the more hardworking you are, the more you deserve a promotion.

Actually getting more things done only means one thing – that you can get more things done. It doesn’t necessarily mean you are promoteable material. And if your boss isn’t interested to tell you what it takes to get promoted, its because either they themselves are blur sotong or in all honesty they don’t see much value in you.

I notice that people who believe in this work harder-get more reward myth tend to be either of low rank or are technical oriented people who are trained to relate to things mathematically. You know, that 1+1 must always be =2. Well if its as simple as that, employers don’t need humans. They just need computers and robots. They’re cheaper and they whine less summore.

Secondly, when this conflict of expectation happens and the first thing that comes to mind is to resign, then its just further proof that you are not promoteable in the first place. It demonstrates (a) an incapability to comprehend that business is more than just about the thing that you’re paid to do, and (b) the inability to take the bull by the horns and solve a problem. Business after all is about solving problems isn’t it.

I also noticed that people who get promoted tend to be loudmouths, jerks and rule breakers, seldom the quiet, compliant and “gwai gwai” types. By their very character, the former are often people who like to push the normal boundaries of the business to see where it goes. Testing fences is risky behaviour yes but someone has to do it and prove the old formulas aren’t working very well any more. If I’m the business owner, I rather have an insider prove I’m wrong than have my customer or worse, my competitor tell me.

Compare that to compliant people who sit quietly behind their fences, minding their own business and doing as their told, believing that the more pages they type the higher they can go up the laddder. I’ve often wondered why such people never enquire why nobody has ever been promoted to CEO after a 20 year typing job.

For me, whether a person is the reserved or noisy type, promotable people have one special characteristic. They can see work as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. They demonstrate it by going beyond their roles, even if it means just talking over lunch, to show that with a bit of imagination, you can achieve the same result quicker or cheaper, or you have a better idea that renders that piece of work redundant. They do this consistently, even if it sounds like they’re just whining and complaining.

Consciously or not, over time the message they send is that they’ve outgrown the little job titles on their business cards. The boss’s antenna is a lot more sensitive to this attitude versus talent thingy than any statistic showing you’ve churned out 10% more work this month than last month. Talent as you know is easily bought or rented.

In the end, I think promotability comes from a state of mind rather than a dry historical record of physical achievements. Are you delivering the work you’re told to do? Well and good, it guarantees you get to keep your job. But to climb the ladder, you need the guts and the imagination to push some boundaries for some tangible breakthroughs. If you do it smart you may get thrown upstairs instead of out.

Not all bosses will appreciate this though. If your boss was himself promoted to his position through the Peter Principle or he’s clearly a buffoon, then I say you’re better off bailing and looking elsewhere for a job.

p/s Thanks Kathi for inspiring me to write this post

5 golden rules for employees

I have a lot of respect for people who are in 9-5 jobs. They are indeed special people who abide by these employee values.

1. Compliant. This means accepting that the boss is always right even though you’re laughing your head off about your bumbling boss during lunch. By extension it also means doing things you’d rather not do. You know, little things like showing up to work on time and sticking to dress code.

2. Charitable. This means selling your talents for a lot less than what you’re convinced they’re worth. For example when you find management pooh-poohing your big idea when you know that on the outside, the same idea can generate you a million bucks easy.

3. Patient. This means ignoring it when your colleagues are trying to subvert your successes by finding fault in everything you do and cc-ing your ‘misdeeds’ by e-mail to the entire company. It also means waiting for year-end promotions that never come.

4. Benevolent. This means having two or three person’s jobs sneakily dumped into your lap for no increase in pay. Its like charity except here they tie you up to an enlarged job scope contractually.

5. Motivator. This means boot-licker or apple-polisher. Going out of your way to make your boss feel good (even if you actually despise him) and motivated to be generous to you during appraisal time. You understand that telling him he’s wrong would flatten his ego faster than a nail in a tire.

But what if you’re not the type who’s compliant, charitable, patient, benevolent and a natural motivator? Well you have two choices: learn them up quickly or get out and set up on your own. You know what they say about leading, following or getting out of the way right?

But if you do set up your own thing and start hiring people as you expand, remember these 5 golden rules for employees. Marvel on the fact that not only are you on the other side now but on how you suddenly feel these rules are utterly justified. Hee hee.

Is high IQ necessary for success?

Not in my books. There are far too many MBAs and PhDs from Ivy league unis out there who flunk badly in the real world. I mean failed businesses, trashed friendships, divorces and shit like that.

What I do know is that high IQ people tend to be unhappier than not-so-smart people. Whenever there’s a problem, a not-so-smart guy sees one solution but a smart one will see five or six. The smart mind likes to spend all its energy pondering all the possible permutations and scenarios long after the not-so-smart guy has taken off and finished the challenge.

I’ve seen companies that are led by very “bright” CEOs who probably qualify to be Mensa members but cannot increase corporate earnings to save their lives. They suffer from too many meetings, analysis paralysis and basically a fear of making the wrong choice in a sea of too much data. (Haha, reminds me of my pal who’s working in the CRM line).

So what is necessary for business success? Well, get a clue and look at our Asian millionaires. Ask yourselves how many of them might even understand the meaning of regression analysis and complex marketing theory.

My answer is simple. Two things – experience and foresight. Nothing beats having “eaten salt” and having a solid gut instinct. After all, the backbone of all business – risk – is an emotional number.

What about IQ? I think its somewhere around number 5, after capital and location.

I’m not saying that a good brain is useless. Far from it. Intelligence is just a tool and you can use it to solve problems that require the tool, for example a design problem. But try to use it to cool down an angry customer/lover and you might get beaten on the head with a handbag.

7 habits of highly annoying bosses (and employees)

This is my very own list of habits of annoying bosses.

1. Indecision and refusal to make decisions.

2. Putting the blame on you even though they were the one who decided to proceed.

3. Blatant favoritism.

4. Cluelessness.

5. Manipulativeness.

6. Badmouthing their own staff to others.

7. Management by intimidation / terrorism.

And for annoying employees:

1. Cluelessness.

2. Demand recognition for activity not result.

3. Laziness.

4. Clock-watching (leave at 5pm sharp).

5. Calculative boundary watching (that’s not my job syndrome).

6. Don’t care attitude

7. Too emo & taking things personally.

A boss should remember that his head will be “chopped off” if his staff doesn’t get the work done.

An employee should remember that he’s screwed if the boss doesn’t think he deserves a promotion or raise.

Moral of the story? A boss shouldn’t think he’s god because his own godfathers won’t be around permanently to protect him. An employee shouldn’t behave like he’s the devil because even devils need to eat. Both need each other so if they’re smart they won’t screw around with one another. Well actually you can but the past catches up with you. Always.

This post is dedicated to my friend Ernie in the Middle who’s grappling with nasty bosses up there and clueless staff down there.

What’s your criteria when choosing a job?

I became a weekend counselor for my cousin who was fresh out of university, had enough of bumming around and is now looking for work. Since I’ve done the thinking, might as well blog about it.

For me there’s no single magic solution or criteria because lets get real, when one is desperate and hungry, what job criteria is there to talk about.

If you are looking for a job, you probably fit into one of these groups:

a. You are a fresh grad willing to try anything
b. You’ve left a job and must now find one or starve
d. You have a job, are not complaining but open to a better opportunity
c. You have a job but hate it and desperately want out
d. You have no job, are not desperate for one (i.e. you have money) but won’t mind some corporate adventure

Fresh Grads
Just like my cousin, I think one of the biggest blunders grads make is to believe that just because they have a degree in engineering, that they must become engineers. That’s old school thinking. I know certified lawyers who operate very successful IT companies and an electrical engineer who manages a chain of lifestyle restaurants. And they are happy. Like my cousin, they didn’t actually choose their line of study. It was made for them by overzealous parents, peer pressure, badly trained counselors, horoscopes and admission quota rules.

In my opinion, the words on your diploma is not a life sentence condemning you to one specific field forever. It just a piece of paper that says you’re now ready for bigger things than exams. Search your heart for your natural calling, a long term challenge that actually has meaning to you. When you find it but still can’t get a job that matches it, that’s ok. Just take whatever that comes, learn and try again.

Already resigned, desperate to find a job
This is the eat-first-think-later problem, suffered by those who hastily threw in the towel and overestimated their own marketability. Well, if your bank balance can’t support next week’s expenses, do you still wanna talk about career paths? I didn’t think so. Just grab any piece of wood that floats by before you drown. You may get caught up in a spate of nasty job-hopping before getting back on track with a real career but then, what do you expect from eat first think later.

You have a job, comfortable but don’t mind a better deal
Ok now we’re talking. At this point you’ve probably realized that money is not everything. You might even be prepared to take a small pay cut for a better work environment that provides some real career advancement. The only thing that bugs you today is that your work has become too routine and there are no promotions in sight. Because you’re not thinking on a hungry stomach, you can afford to take your time to do some serious research on things like upward mobility, field of specialty, type of boss, work culture bla bla bla. The world’s your oyster, follow your hunch but don’t stray too far away from reason.

You hate your job and want to quit. Immediately.
You are having nightmares about your company and are 1 cm away from joining the 2nd category above. Don’t do it. Not until you have a job offer letter in hand or have 1 year’s worth of cash reserve to live on. You’ll need that much in today’s conditions. If you have to, learn meditation to take the nonsense at work while shopping for a good alternative. Resist the temptation to simply grab any offer that comes along. When you are motivated by running away from something instead of running towards something, you will end up jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Relax dude, take it easy.

You are on easy street, don’t need a job but don’t mind the adventure
You are every boss’s nightmare because you can’t be threatened or blackmailed into submission by the usual thing – money. Bosses can’t stand people wearing kevlar vests in the office especially when they are junior staff. If you’re not shy to hide your wealth, you’ll probably want to look at smaller companies that have flat or informal management hierarchies. You might even want to consider joining a young startup. Of course you can join a big company but you may land yourself in some unwelcome adventure because a hierarchy is propped up by a reward system (money) and if money doesn’t sway you, you become a threat. So like I said, smaller but faster moving companies will fit you better.

Did I miss anything? Anyway, I thought I had to say all this because I disagreed with my cousin’s uni job counselor who kept insisting there’s only one way to handle a career search regardless of your life’s circumstances. I think he’s been smoking too much of whatever they’re giving away at the uni.

Do past grades and salaries really indicate how good you are?

My simple answer is no but people – whether employers or customers – naturally want to get the upper hand.

When I was in school, mathematics was my worst subject. My mind operated in a world of fuzzy logic, not precise logic and so I excelled in the arts. If I got a C or D in maths and chemistry I’d run around and hoot in celebration because I didn’t get an F.

Something happened after I graduated from college. One day as I was browsing aimlesly in Kinokuniya, I was moved to buy this book on cosmology. Something in it must have unlocked a part of my brain because after I finished it, I saw mathematics in a different light. Complex calculus actually started to make sense and man, it spooked the hell out of me. A few months later I found myself helping my sister with her form 6 math problems. That was my first lesson never to take past performance as a definite indicator of future performance.

The second one involved salaries. I once attended an interview where they made a big deal about my last job’s salary. It was low because the frickin company promised everyone bonuses that never came and the company finally shut down due to financial mismanagement. But anyhow, because on paper my salary was 15% below the industry average, the interviewers proceeded along the lines that I must not be good. I knew these bastards wanted to get me for cheap because while they were excited with my ideas and track record, they kept harping that my last drawn proves I’m not as good as I make myself out to be. And yet they didn’t want to show me the door either. Finally I gave them my middle finger and left.

I don’t know what to make of people and companies who insist that if you failed once, you will fail forever in your life or if you succeeded once, you will succeed forever. Well apparently, this infantile way of thinking is a pillar of corporate thinking, particularly in HR departments. I notice they always start the relationship on a position of distrust. What they do not admit is the fact that performance and environment is linked. If you are a superstar hired by a crap company, you will probably get crap results. But who at the interview table will admit their company is crap.

So while I don’t mind revealing my numbers to potential employers, I do mind if they make conclusions about me based solely on that history. Maybe its just me but I don’t work with people of impaired judgement, namely those who insist that I’m only as good as my past.