What a career!

It's the dog days of summer, but there will be no lolling about here.

van Schouwen Associates has a career opportunity available... for the right person. We want a strategic communications professional to join our writing and PR team. WELL, you may say, that should be an easy position to fill.

Nope. In fact, looking for the right person to fill this job opening gives the existing vSA team a new appreciation for what we do every day. And it gives me a new appreciation for the team we have. The job opportunity requires a person who can:

-Face undaunted the task of QUICKLY learning to communicate intelligently about client specialties that may range from geothermal engineering to patented building supplies, aerospace quality management to investment planning for the wealthy.

-Write like Ernest Hemingway about said topics.

-Edit like... oh, I don't know, A.M. Rosenthal?... about said topics.

-For media relations initiatives, pitch to diverse, extremely busy editors, employing a keen understanding of what each editor, each venue and each readership needs right now.

-Switch between topics, disciplines and client needs at a moment's notice. And again. And...

-Genuinely enjoy working with clients who are smart, busy, facing pressures and deadlines of their own, and who trust vSA to create and implement strategic marketing programs that perform... programs that perform extremely well, no matter what the climate.

-Come up with great program ideas and innovations for clients.

-Work social media in B2B, financial services and other wilderness expanses.

-Work with the rest of us.*

Are you the one? Do you know the one? Be in touch...

*We're fun. Naturally.

Three career myths that matter today... and the grains of truth within

With unemployment still high, many professionals set adrift from previously apparently stable jobs and new grads pounding the pavement (or the keyboard) looking for work until their shoes wear thin (or their fingers hurt), contemporary "wisdom" about careers deserves a hard second look.

The myth: Do what you love and the money will follow. Oh, please. We may all wish it were true. The fact is, you can love doing something a lot, but if there's no demand for your service, your product, art, or ideas, and you can't build that demand... the money, most assuredly, will NOT follow.

The grain of truth: Your enthusiasm for your work likely means you'll work harder and do a better job than you'd do if unenthused. Good performance obviously contributes to success. Plus, your own energy communicates and helps create enthusiasm in others around you. Nonetheless, don't quit your day job to market those handpainted dog bowls... not yet.

The myth: There is no loyalty among employers toward their employees. Especially in businesses in which you are "more than a number," your dedication, abilities and contributions do count. Decisions about promotions and raises are flavored by employers' regard for hard-working staff and their feelings. What's more, many employers do agonize over layoffs and even terminations "for cause".

The grain of truth: It's business. When it comes down to brass tacks, employers and managers have to look at the bottom line, at trends and at your performance. Loyalty will not trump business considerations in most cases. And in some big companies, decisions about your future are made by number crunchers who don't know you from Adam.

The myth: You need to decide early on what you're going to do with your life, career-wise. Really? One of my associates went to medical school in her 40s, another to law school, and both started successful second careers. Another began as a commercial photographer and made a 180 degree turn to a long and rewarding career in public service.

The grain of truth: It's great to head off to college with a major and a career path in mind, or to get a first job that sets you on a ladder to dizzying heights. There are other ways to go, but they can be more difficult. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, career changes today "can entail major costs in retraining and pay cuts – plus, in the current job climate, the risk of not finding employment." While this sounds unappealing, staying in a stultifying career for, oh, 30 to 40 years, could be a lot worse. Bottom line: it's your life, and you want it to be as fulfilling as possible.

The onus is on the applicant.

We've been reviewing resumes. If the right person applies, we may have a position available. Admittedly, the bar is high. And we've had a lot of applicants. Over 100 so far for a single job.

But here's the thing. I'll bet van Schouwen Associates is like a lot of companies right now, in that we're not looking for just anybody who can fill a seat and perform some tasks. vSA staff is high-performing. Always, and these days especially, anyone who joins our ranks must bring stellar skills, a certain sparkle and the get-up-and-go to get really challenging work done on really snappy deadlines.

When the cover letter says, "I am looking for a position with a growth-oriented company that allows me to further my career goals," do we jump up and down with excitement? When the resume blats, "achieves marketing goals within budget and exceeds corporate expectations", guess whether an interview will happen?* When the email announces that the applicant seeks a sales position (which this isn't), how does that come across?

Savvy employers want more than ever from employees and applicants because we face a wild business environment. If a company like ours doesn't find the right applicant, it may not hire at all. At vSA, we know full well that some of the resumes we just put aside required a lot of effort on the part of the applicant, and that the cover letters are heartfelt. We've all been there.

The challenge is to get into the head of the employer. We admire an applicant who addresses our real concerns, which may variously include ramping up quickly, being well-versed in up-and-coming industry sectors, writing like a star... etc. We also admire an applicant with a personality.

So that's the input we sometimes wish we could offer in the "no thanks" email we send to many applicants. Because we do mean it when we say, "We wish you well in your career search."

*No.

Flying without radar.

[caption id="attachment_121" align="alignleft" width="103" caption="In business, as in life, not having a clue what you're doing often ends poorly."][/caption]

One of the many lessons one could reasonably take away from the Wall Street/Main Street/Bailout debacle is this: It's dangerous not to understand the intricacies of your work. And if you're a boss, and you don't understand these intricacies, you'd better make sure that the people you rely on are on the same page as you. On Wall Street, risk is the name of the game, of course. To a certain extent, risk is inherent in every business enterprise. But the ambient dangers of any business venture (economic factors, competitive pressures, trends that affect the need for your product or service, and all the rest) are sufficient without piling ignorance on top. In the financial sector, we've seen a rather pervasive degree of ignorance of factors including:

-What happens when virtually incomprehensible mortgage-backed securities behave badly

-Why a housing bubble might just maybe burst someday

-Why the likely "depth to the bottom" is going to be really, really embarrassing. To say the least.

Now, turning our attention away from Wall Street... the last decade has challenged many businesspeople, especially veterans (yeah, that means old people, like, you know, 40). For many of us, changes in technology alone - whether in computer science, medicine, biotech or the like - have meant long evenings of research or, in some cases, toying with the temptation of early retirement (like, you know, at 40). The fact is that, when managing any career that matters, each of us has to keep our radar turned on, our eyes and ears sharp and our focus firmly on understanding the changing business/tech/financial concepts that, let's face it, we are duty-bound to master.