Mike McBride Online

Career

You Really Are Interviewing the Company Too
ByMike McBride December 20, 2022December 19, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

I’ve watched more than one interviewer struggle to answer this question, I’ve heard stories of just some really poor answers, and I’ve had interviewers answer this in very clear detail. The ones who were prepared to answer that question were the ones who had already considered the metrics that would be involved in measuring employees and who, frankly, made a better fit. Knowing how you’re being measured allows you to start on the first day knowing what’s expected of you and what is important. How could you not want that? How could you hire someone and not know what success looks like for that hire? It’s not a good sign for you as a hiring manager or for the culture of your organization.

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Career

Linked – The Myth of the Brilliant, Charismatic Leader
ByMike McBride December 17, 2022December 17, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

As I’ve heard many people say, the problem is not that having managers is bad; it’s that there are so many bad managers out there. We don’t treat managing and leadership with the attention and importance it deserves, mainly because we don’t realize how much it matters. Good management is boring. (A point made in more detail in the link below) I say that because good management has no drama and no chaos. It’s pretty simple communication about expectations and follow-through. Unfortunately, those managers don’t get highlighted in magazine features because they aren’t interesting. But that’s the point. Good management isn’t there to be entertaining in a reality-TV kind of way; it is there so that the team can get the job done.

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Career

Another New Term for People Looking out for Themselves – Career Cushioning
ByMike McBride December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

The quickest way to cut expenses is to cut staff. This is the way of the world in the 21st Century. Until someone comes along and changes that, it only makes sense to keep your options open. As the article I linked points out, that can mean keeping your knowledge and skills up to date, staying in touch with your network, and possibly looking at side gigs you could hop to if you find yourself in a company that is laying off staff.

I don’t see anything wrong with that. It’s not disloyal to your employer. That’s not the world we work in any longer.

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Training

A Cursor is a Small Thing you can Change to Make Online Training Better
ByMike McBride December 13, 2022December 12, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

Jim Calloway shared a tip about changing your cursor color and size on his Law Practice Tips blog, and it reminded me of a little bit of a pet peeve that I often have with people doing technology demos or training remotely. They move too fast.

Rather, they move as if we all saw the screen exactly as they do. When you’re doing remote learning like that, you have to account for two things when it comes to your cursor. One is video lag. The other is how small it may appear in the shared-screen environment.

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Career

Linked – How to Find (or Start) a Job Search Club
ByMike McBride December 12, 2022December 11, 2022 Reading Time: 1 minute

Have you considered starting a club if you’ve been laid off recently? If you haven’t, maybe give it a try. I’m not in the same boat but if I can help you get started and try to connect you to others, let me know how.

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Career | Links

Linked – Productivity is outdated. Here’s why.
ByMike McBride December 6, 2022December 5, 2022 Reading Time: 2 minutes

When you have that blurring, though, the idea that you can measure productivity the same way as you did when we spent 8 hours building a widget seems a little overly simplistic, doesn’t it?

The challenge is finding the thing we can measure to evaluate whether people are accomplishing the goals we set for them, but those goals can’t be the “number of things or hours” when the work is so much more than that.

Read More Linked – Productivity is outdated. Here’s why.