TheLadders Blog

Mentoring job seekers is a common goal that StreetWise Partners and TheLadders have always had in common. On Tuesday, September 11^th, the two entities came together once again to present the ‘Train the Trainer’ session to approximately 75 mentors.

TheLadders Job Search Expert Amanda Augustine instructed the mentors on how to effectively coach their trainees. Throughout the night, the mentors learned how to overcome various obstacles including unemployment, employee gaps, and job-hopping.

Mentors broke into five different groups to execute role-playing scenarios moderated by talent specialists, career advisers, and resume writers from TheLadders in addition to seasoned mentors from StreetWise Partners, an organization that works with low-income individuals to help them overcome employment barriers and achieve economic self-sufficiency. The mentors were then charged with devising a plan that would help to build rapport, set short- and long-term goals, and manage expectations with their trainees.

For example, new mentors Jessica and Tanya were given the following scenario: Ramona, a recent college graduate, is extremely shy when it comes to networking and doesn’t feel confident enough to approach potential employers. The two mentors worked together to come up with a strategy to conquer these fears with the help of an experienced mentor, Kimberly Fernandez.

Kimberly instructed the group to present their shy mentees with small challenges, such as sending them to local organizations to retrieve business cards. “My trainee soon learned she could become more and more confident on a daily basis,” Kimberly said.

Following the interactive sessions, Amanda wrapped up the successful event and wished all the mentors good luck.  We look forward to participating in more events with StreetWise Partners and striving towards the ultimate goal of launching new careers!

Meena Rupani is a Resume Writer for TheLadders in New York City who loves to engage clients in effectively restructuring their resume to land them the perfect job. She also loves reading and spending quality time with her loving family.

What do yellow cab stress toys, mouse pads, sunglasses and letter openers have in common?

TheLadders logo, of course!

Outside the door of the Rockefeller Board Room at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, attendees from the latest NYC Tech Connect Riverside Chats Speaker Series ventured to our table to peruse our goods. Free stuff works, right?

Founded in January 2011 as a public-private partnership, NYC Tech Connect sets out to foster the development of a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem in NYC by providing programs, expertise and resources designed to accelerate the development of entrepreneurs and their technology startups. Not only did this crowd leave with free toys and stress relievers, they learned a little more about writing effective resumes and added a strong resource to their entrepreneurial job-search arsenal: free three-month premium memberships to TheLadders.

Altogether, I had the pleasure of meeting 50 – 75 job seekers at this event, and despite the occasional joker (upon seeing the yellow squishy cab, someone said, “oh, I see you’re selling car insurance!”), I felt very helpful answering job-search questions and sharing resume tips. I have four years of resume-critiquing and writing experience under my belt, but most of my interaction with job seekers is through phone and email conversations. It felt great to meet with job seekers face-to-face and help them on the spot!

Tiffany Kirk is the Lead Trainer for TheLadders’ Career Services Team. Having reviewed more than 20,000 resumes, she leads a team of resume analysts in providing detailed resume critiques to TheLadders’ members. When she’s not working, she enjoys Broadway shows, reading/writing fiction and nonfiction, and supporting her Boston-based teams. Yes, the 2004 baseball season is still fresh in her mind, and 2011 never happened. 

“Work hard, play hard.”

“A family that plays together stays together.”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

There must be a reason that so many clichés speak to the importance of play. I can’t imagine how we, at TheLadders, could work so well together and accomplish so much if we didn’t grow closer outside of the 9-5. It’s not just the mandatory office happy hours and celebrations of successful projects I’m talking about; we choose to share our off-work interests and time with each other. So last week, a bunch of us wrapped up planning meetings at our Soho office to head up to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens to watch a few US Open matches.

It’s fair to say we were drawn there for different reasons: the tennis fan from marketing was there for the love of the game, the sports fanatic on our tech team wanted to keep up with the latest of competitive tournaments, and I myself was especially excited to see my countryman, Novak Djokovic, take some names. So we all learned a bit from each other about the rules of tennis and the history of the US Open (did you know they changed from grass courts to hard courts, after a brief trial with clay courts?).

Getting outside the office with your coworkers in a new context diminishes the usual hierarchies and allows you to enjoy your team in a new light. So if I could leave you with one last cliché, I’d say TheLadders likes to “work harder, play harder, and win together!”

Selena Hadzibabic heads up the Product team at TheLadders. Having worked on both the job seeker and recruiter side of the product, she is no longer cheer-leading either side: she just wants to put the right people in touch with each other.

Last week, I participated in a webinar hosted by Jack Chapman, author of “How to Make a $1,000 a Minute.”

The webinar, “Surviving the Coming 2013 Double Dip Recession,” focused on the “Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” providing attendees with a lesson in basic economic theory and explaining why recessions and inflation occur. The bottom line: he believes 2013 is going to be a hard year on our economy, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

But what does that mean for the average professional or job seeker? Jack recommends the following strategies:

• Enjoy the good old days. Take a moment and appreciate what you have today, and be prepared for inflation in the future.

• Be the best in your field. Focus on making yourself as valuable as possible to your organization – “the top 10 percent are always employed.”

• Build your “networld.” In other words, maintain and continue to grow a strong professional online presence. Remain visible among those in your field. Participate in group discussions, write articles, and attend events – all of these activities will help you learn of new opportunities, and put you on the radars of recruiters and hiring managers.

• Consider a second income.  What other talents and passions do you have that could be used to secure a side job? For retirees, consider taking up an “encore career” to maintain a steady source of income.

• Follow the money. Explore opportunities in industries that will still be in high demand, even during tougher times. Jack recommends researching roles within regulation, healthcare and telecom, and shying away from  the luxury industry, which he believes is still on the decline.

• Negotiate COLA. COLA stands for Cost Of Living Adjustment. Request a COLA when negotiating your compensation package with a new employer. This will prevent your compensation from losing its value because of inflation.

For someone who doesn’t know a lot about the “ins and outs” of economics, the presentation was interesting. However, I wish we had more time to dive a bit deeper into Jack’s job-search strategies. Judge for yourself – you can check out his presentation here.

If you’re currently on the job hunt, I recommend picking up a copy of Jack’s book. Personally, I think it’s the bible for salary negotiations. What I love most is how easy it is to follow – he gives actual examples of what to say in different scenarios, along with possible responses. He even provides a cheat sheet on negotiations at the beginning of the book for readers who need a quick refresher right before an interview.

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert at TheLadders. Always on the go at work and away, Amanda trains and competes in races and triathlons in her spare time.

Corporate culture is an important part of any company’s well-being. Here at TheLadders, we love to find reasons to get together and have fun.

In celebration of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games (which we have streaming in our break rooms), our company’s internal Our Team Wins Council  brainstormed  ways to foster employee involvement and engagement. The result? An Olympic-themed event in true style of TheLadders! By the way, for those who don’t have the Olympics being blasted in the office, I encourage you to check out TheCareerChronicles blog on watching the Olympics at work while still being productive!

For our own special version of The Games, we participated in a variety of Olympic-inspired sports that we recreated in physical form such as ping pong and soccer, while others, such as boxing, were simulated digitally with the assistance of Xbox 360 and Wii gaming consoles. Fortunately, our games weren’t bound by the rules of the International Olympic Committee, so we offered several non-Olympic events such as dance-offs, bowling, foosball, darts and Pictionary, enabling all of us to embrace our competitive spirit.

It was a great evening of fun, food, and fitness…I just hope we don’t have to wait years to host it again! In the meantime, TheLadders will be training for the 2014 Winter Olympics…although I’m unsure how we can practice the cold-weather sports from inside our SoHo offices!

Kai Brinker is a product manager at TheLadders. When he’s not managing product-implementation roadmaps and roll-out strategies, he enjoys exploring New York City’s outer boroughs by bicycle and scoping out the finest Austrian cuisine the city has to offer.

This past Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a Step Up Women’s Network Power Breakfast with Banana Republic’s Chief Marketing Officer and SVP Catherine Sadler.

For those of you unfamiliar with the group, Step Up Women’s Network is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to “igniting women and girls to fulfill their potential.” They provide after-school and weekend programs to help teenage girls from under-privileged communities become confident young women prepared for college. Their members gain access to social networking events, professional development panels and hands-on volunteer opportunities. If you live in Los Angeles, Chicago or New York, I highly recommend checking them out.

The event, which was held in Banana Republic’s Fifth Avenue location, was packed! Catherine discussed the journey she’s taken throughout her career, from her early days in publishing, to leading the marketing groups of renowned retail companies, including Ann Taylor and Coach. She also led her own creative and marketing agency, and worked with Donna Karan on her Urban Zen Foundation.

Catherine then answered a myriad of questions from the audience on all aspects of her career, from how she balances family and work, to what she looks for in candidates when hiring. Here are a few key takeaways:

On marketing: Catherine says that, as a marketer, it’s vital to a company’s success to integrate marketing efforts with other divisions of the organization. Additionally, if becoming CMO is your goal, take an active role in all marketing functions, from public relations and advertising, to branding and visual merchandising.

On hiring: In looking for prospective employees, Catherine is interested in the person who, in addition to having the required skills, possesses a genuine curiosity about the business and its direction. She looks for people who have the right level of engagement, interest and passion, who’ve researched the brand and industry, and come prepared with questions.

On career: When asked what three words she’d put on a t-shirt, Catherine gave these options: “Dreaming the Dream,” “Follow your Bliss,” and “Find your Passion.” However, she also warns that work shouldn’t define you completely, and you need to keep that in mind when trying to strike that perfect balance between work and life.

I think she’s spot-on. You spend a large portion of your life at work. Shouldn’t you be doing what you are great at and passionate about? I know that I have, and hope the same for all of you!

Amanda Augustine is the Job Search Expert at TheLadders. Always on the go at work and away, Amanda trains and competes in races and triathlons in her spare time.

Congratulations to Carol Ann Witschi from Seattle, Washington for winning our SHRM 2012 raffle! Out of the thousands who trekked TheLadders’ Hire Mountain at SHRM 2012 and signed up for a complimentary Passport account, Carol was the lucky winner of a $5,000 vacation of her choice. Additionally, she can now use her Passport membership with TheLadders to post job openings, search for relevant resumes, and connect with candidates from our job-seeker community, all while sipping her mojito on a remote island beach. Talk about a win-win!

Even though you did not get the grand prize, you can still win big by going to recruit.theladders.com and signing up for Passport. Post unlimited job openings on TheLadders and search our job-seeker community freely to find appropriate candidates.

We look forward to making you a winner in your recruiting efforts.

Kean Gardner is an Account Manager of Recruiter Relations for TheLadders who loves to ensure that every recruiter knows how to find, and connect with, the best candidates for their jobs. He also loves to rip holes in the dance floor and educate on healthy living.  

RSVP Here
Date: June 19th, 2012
Time: 630PM
Location: 137 Varick Street (@ Spring Street), 8th Floor, New York City

Business models don’t last as long as they used to. Historically, CEOs have managed a single business model over their entire careers. Even today, while business and design communities talk about product and service innovation, no one is getting to the heart of the issue. It’s not just about creating new, sustainable product lines, it’s about innovating the way a company creates, delivers, and captures value. Companies need to become skilled at exploring new business models out in the wild, not in the laboratory. Saul Kaplan’s book is the first exploration of this important topic. The Business Model Innovation Factory provides business and non-profit leaders, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs with the toolset to create new business models in the face of disruptive markets and competition.

Most leaders realize they face a serious threat from new social platforms, new skilled labor forces overseas, and a constant stream of new startups. TheLadders faces this level of competition every day. Last year alone we saw the launch of over 100 startups focused on career matching. While most companies would strengthen their entrenched business model by adding new services, as Saul argues, “these strategies may create value in the short-term but none of these efforts… are effective for long in the face of a disruptive competitor.”

Join TheLadders June 19th at our offices in SoHo, NYC in welcoming Saul to discuss The Business Model Innovation Factory. He will outline the 15 business model principles that provide guidelines to discover new ways of creating and delivering value.

Saul Kaplan is the founder and chief catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory (BIF), a real-world laboratory for exploring and testing new business models and social systems. BIF has attracted a global community of over 5,000 innovators and organizes the internationally renowned BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit. Saul shares his innovation musings on Twitter (@skap5) and his blog (It’s Saul Connected), and as regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek. www.bmifbook.com

Will Evans is Manager, Experience Design for TheLadders in New York City with 15 years industry experience in interaction design, information architecture, and user experience strategy.

You may be walking around your city/town wondering to yourself — have I traveled back in time to 1977?

Nope! It’s Movember. Movember is a campaign to raise awareness and funds to support the fight against prostate/testicular cancer. The movement began in Australia (where the nick name for moustache is “Mo”) and is now a global force.

During month of November men around the world grow moustaches and gather sponsors to donate to the cause. It’s a fun way to generate awareness for a sometimes forgotten issue — men’s health.

Here at TheLadders, a group of 24 proud and brave men to rock the ‘stache for the entire month. So far we’ve raised $5,200 and are almost at our lofty goal of $6k. As capitan of the team, I can tell you it’s no easy task walking around for a month with a ferret on your upper lip. Mothers hide their children, girls shoot dirty looks and I keep getting offers to be a Burt Reynolds stunt double. The point is that a moustache is quite ostentatious accessory and everyone has an opinion. But, that’s the point! Every glare, every snarl, every fleeing old lady is a chance to spread the word. It’s a living billboard for men’s health, and the 24 men of TheLadders have done a smashing job of generating funds and fun to kick cancer’s butt.

We’ve even created a calendar to memorialize our efforts. A beautiful desk calendar available for only $10. Every person purchasing the calendar will not only be contributing to a worthwhile cause but, ensuring a 2012 full of daily creepiness!

If you’re interested in donating click here.

1. Click “Donate to team” on the left hand side or find your favorite moustache dude on the right hand side of the page to donate individually
2. Fill out the required information
3. Give the ‘stache and cancer research a monetary boost

If you would like this alluring desk calendar, just email me and I’ll make the magic happen for you!

JP Russo is a sales executive for the enterprise sales team. When he’s not creeping people out with his moustache he is making sure recruiters and HR directors across the country get the most qualified candidates in the least amount of time.

A few weeks ago one of our talented Interactive Designers, Michelle Zassenhaus, suggested we pitch TheLadders executive team on a persona research project. We discussed the need and merit of this project for a while without reaching a clear consensus. Where I was getting stuck was the need for this exercise given how much face time we actually have with our customers. We run usability testing every week. We call customers on an ad hoc basis but it amounts to nearly weekly conversations. The company has an annual focus group initiative and our customer service teams are always vocal with prevalent customer issues. In short, we know our users. So why would we need to create personas?

I posed the question to several folks including Tristan Kromer. Tristan suggested that instead of trying to sell the organization on an expensive project where they weren’t sure what they would be getting for their money and we, the UX team, couldn’t cohesively articulate why we were even doing it, we should introduce the executive team to the concept of personas as a corporate alignment tool. The idea seemed not only viable but also valuable. At the end of that lunch-time chat, I promised Tristan I’d write a blog post recapping the activity and its results. And so, here we are.

I decided to pitch the organization on a proto-persona (aka ad-hoc persona) exercise where the executive team would articulate who they believed we were building products for and how our current and future offerings would meet their needs in the near-term future. My belief was that in each of their points of view, the executive team had a different target audience in mind. In addition, I believed that many of them were approaching corporate strategy from the inside out – in other words, from their particular discipline (e.g., marketing, products/features, services, customer support, etc) and not from a customer-centric point of view. The goal of the exercise was to get everybody’s points of view out on the table and then consolidated into a single, shared consensus about who we believe our customers are and what needs of theirs we should be solving in 2012 and beyond.

My timing could not have been any better. The team was going through the nascent stages of 2012 planning and, if I could have the exercise pulled together quickly, we could build it into their process. I built a quick proposal where I articulated a problem statement, the objectives and goals of the exercise and the specific methodology we would employ to achieve those goals. Michelle and I reviewed it a bit and off it went for executive approval. Luckily for us it was quickly approved and I was cleared to book the executive team for two, 3-hour meetings over the next two weeks.

(It’s worth mentioning that our target audience had broadly expanded in the month prior to these exercises. In October 2011, TheLadders expanded its market reach from the $100k+ salary range to include professionals of all levels. This opened our products and service to a whole new set of potential customers. )

Day 1 – persona creation

Pens, paper, ipads and pizza. What else would you need?

The first day consisted of pulling the team together from noon to 3pm (pizzas were brought in) and presenting them a short introduction. The presentation stressed that we were going to look at the company from the customer’s point of view. Our goal was to articulate who the customer was (or were) and what needs they have that we could choose to serve or not serve. Michelle and I introduced the executives to the concept of an ad-hoc persona by explaining that these were going to be “people” they believed were going to be our customers now and in the coming future. It was important for us to stress the difference between real personas and ad-hoc ones. These were not going to be research-proven customer archetypes. They were however going to be reference points which the team can use as filters in the 2012 planning and decision-making process. We closed the short pitch with examples of what they’d be creating.

The team was going to sketch quadrants for each persona. Here is an example of a finished persona:

Example of ad hoc persona

The top left quadrant was for a sketch of the individual, a name and some basic demographics.

The top right quadrant was for behaviors and beliefs of the persona.

The bottom left quadrant was for demographics.

The bottom right quadrant was for needs and goals.

The team was given 15 minutes to create as many personas as they could or felt were necessary.

Once complete, each executive presented their persona to the team. They read the persona out loud and posted up on a wall. The team would then provide some feedback on the realistic qualities (or not) of that persona and some real-time adjustments were made.

Marc Cenedella, CEO & Founder of TheLadders, presenting his personas

Next, the team was asked to place each persona on a set of 5 spectrums. The spectrums were: years of experience, education, ambition, risk tolerance and tech savviness. Each executive was given three Agile planning poker cards. The cards had the numbers 1, 3 or 5 on them and the team was asked to vote by raising the card they felt most appropriately mapped where each persona fell on each spectrum.

The team voting with planning poker cards

Much like Agile planning poker, if there was consensus there was minimal discussion. If , however, there were outliers or a broad distribution of opinion on where a particular persona lay on a particular spectrum, we encouraged the team to discuss and debate that. In many cases, the outliers managed to sway some votes. In other cases the majority won and in still other cases the team made real-time adjustments to their personas to more closely match their view of our target audience.

As each name was voted on the spectrum, their name was written on the whiteboard in the appropriate spot. Almost instantly, patterns began to form. There were clear clusters and clear outliers. At the end of the 3 hours exercise we had a board filled with personas and persona names mapped to spectrums.

Spectrums with names mapped on them

We ended the exercise by thanking the team and letting them go for the day. Michelle and I spent the next few days consolidating the 20+ personas that were created down into a manageable size based on their spectrum distributions. We wanted to get to 3-5. We ended up with 6.

Completed persona

Day 2 – Persona verification and design studio

Day two began with donuts. It was morning and it was early. Donuts help. A lot.

We began the exercise with the team by going over the consolidated set of personas. We’d sent the team the document in advance of the meeting so they would come in , in theory, prepared to discuss. We projected each persona and began a vigorous discussion around their validity not only as a “real” person but also as a customer that we wanted to support moving forward. This part of the exercise truly engaged the team. Strong opinions were presented and an excellent debate ensued around some of the newer customer types were now attracting to the site.

Reviewing the consolidated personas

Each persona was reviewed in detail and adjusted, in real-time, to provide a representation that the team could agree upon. This was probably the part of the two-day exercise where the most consensus was built. At the end, we still had 6 personas but they were now modified enough to where the team was comfortable with all of them as viable customers (Note: interestingly, one contentious persona had to get down to a vote and made it in as a customer by a vote of 5-4).

The second half of this exercise was a design studio. Many articles have been written about how to run these and we use them regularly with the staff at TheLadders. We modified this one for time and focus. The first 5 minute round of sketching consisted of a single 6-up template for each executive team member.

The design studio in progress

Each executive presented and got critique from the others. The team was then split into two groups based simply on where they were seated and asked to consolidate their sketches in to one big sticky note drawing. The drawings were all supposed to be of TheLadders.com home page articulating value propositions that were relevant to the 6 personas. Each critique session asked how the designs presented were valid for the various personas. The teams consolidated their visions into two big drawings that amazingly enough converged on similar themes.

Big sketchin’!

We dismissed the team, thanked them for their time and asked for any feedback (good or bad) on the exercise. We followed up with a summary email that recapped what we did and what the themes were that we found. In addition, we stressed again that these were our beliefs and that, now that we had them, we will be using them to drive recruiting for usability studies, compare them against other customer samples and will update and adjust them as we find characteristics of real customers that go against our initial beliefs.

The one final asset we created was a printed deck of persona cards so that these ideas could easily come to any executive meeting – especially the ones where we were not present.

Persona cards – front

Persona cards – back

Learnings

We had several goals when we set out to run this exercise with the executive team. The first was to introduce them to the concept of personas. We achieved this goal to the extent that the team now knows what this tool is and what components make it up. Given that these were ad-hoc personas, it is incumbent on us, the UX team, to continue to update the 6 personas we created as we learn more from actual user interactions. We must then update the executives with these new details.

The second goal was to get the executive team thinking from a customer-centric point of view. For the duration of the exercise we succeeded though it was a constant effort to keep the conversation focused this way. Each executive’s tendency was to fall back to their traditional points of view based on their responsibilities and, as moderators, it was our job to bring the focus back to the customers. One additional thing that I found particularly interesting was the team’s tendency to present their feedback and insights to me, the moderator, as opposed to their teammates. Our goal was to have the team debating each other and, while that happened at times, much of the conversation was happening with the moderator (Michelle or I) as the initial recipient who would then bounce the dialogue back to the team. Beyond the exercise, it’s too early to tell how successful we’ve been. Our hope is that the printed card deck will serve as a reminder for the team.

The third goal was align the executive team around a target audience and get them to debate and agree upon value propositions that serve the needs and goals of that audience. Again, within the constraints of the exercise I believe we were successful. We created over 20 ad-hoc personas and consolidated down to an agreed-upon set of six. We designed landing pages for those personas that spoke to the value of the products and services we’d offer them in 2012. There was consistency in the themes the team raised and a general acknowledgment of a shared understanding. Will this alignment last into future planning meetings? Again, it’s too early to tell but early indications point to only minor erosion of these initial ideas.

This article was first published at jeffgothelf.com

Jeff Gothelf is the Director of UX at TheLadders. He’s also the author of Lean UX: Getting Out of the Deliverables Business (O’Reilly, 2012), Agile practitioner, interaction designer, blogger, public speaker, author and design/product thinker.