7 Career-Defining Tips

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Kellie Hart

Everyone has their own ideas when it comes to what it takes to have a successful career. That being said, you wouldn’t think it would take an Executive Coach to figure these out and that they would be considered common sense, but they are not!

In a recent Forbes article, an Executive Coach reveals “the best career advice ever” – advice that applies to any industry, any role and fits in nicely with Intelex’s Corporate Values: Leadership, Sustainability, Integrity, Respect for All Individuals, Teamwork & Trust, Stewardship, Hard Work, and Happiness.

1. Recognize a diamond in the rough – you would be hard-pressed to find an organization that is perfect and of course everyone has their own definition of a “prefect organization”. It is also important to recognize that a career-defining moment can come from helping an organization get out of a tough situation.

2. Be accountable – be the person who follows up, makes deadlines, and takes ownership. How do you gain respect from your clients, management and colleagues, if you can’t be trusted?

3. Be honest – recognize when you’re wrong and speak up when you disagree. Standing out means having your own opinion.

4. Treat everyone equally – no matter what your role is, respect goes a long way. It is as basic as referring to your direct reports as your colleagues rather than your staff.

5. Be gracious – this one should be the most obvious, but is probably the most neglected. Self-entitlement plagues workplaces. Saying thank you for the opportunities you receive and recognizing a job well done goes a long way.

6. Take initiative – don’t wait to be asked – be proactive!

7. Help others – focusing only on your own development is not the only way to be recognized. Mentoring and developing someone else’s career shows your leadership potential.

Career tips based on Kristi Hedeges’ Forbes article, “Executive Coach Reveals Best Career Advice Ever”.

Are you over-preparing for your job interview?

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Bryan Humphries

When most people think of “HR interview questions”, a traditional set of questions come to mind. These questions are predictable, repeatable, and easy to prepare for. Candidates also come prepared to defend their experience and their resumes. They think any gaps in timeline will meticulously be scrutinized. Candidates can over-prepare to answer questions like, “what are your strenghts and weaknesses?” or “do you prefer to work on a team or on your own?” and my personal favourite “tell me about yourself”.

Typically, when these questions get asked, the overly prepared answers are delivered. Answers that can easily be found on the Internet. Candidates are representing not who they truly are, but who they feel the interviewer wants them to be. These questions might be able to secure individuals who can handle the everyday aspects of the roles they are in contention for. However, for companies concerned over their corporate culture, these questions not only miss out on cultural-fit, but also do not accurately predict how well they will do in the role.

Interviews are similar to a consultative sale, there needs to be a discovery conversation to define what a candidate needs in a new role, what are their skills? Their background? What are the intangibles? At the end of it all, the most important question is what do they want to do? The only way to get here is getting honest answers. The goal is to have a relaxed candidate who is not put on the defensive and relying on prepared answers, but actually thinking and speaking for themselves and relying on their experiences rather than what they think they should say.

At Intelex, our interview process is intended to foster a conversation about what you can bring to our organization, what Intelex can do for you, and what we can pull from your past experiences. For us at Intelex, preparing for the interview process means researching the company, reviewing your experiences and showing us who you are as an individual – not what something on the Internet said you should say!

Bryan Humphries is a Corporate Recruiter with Intelex’s Professional Development Office (PDO). The Intelex PDO posts advice, tips and insight on careers and professional development every second Wednesday.

Training Gap Analysis 101

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Purdal Mya

Training new hires in the tech industry has become a challenging pursuit among training and development professionals. As technology endlessly evolves, training objectives have to follow suit. This can cause large gaps in your training program if they are not addressed early and often. Conducting a Training Gap Analysis is a great way to stay on top of the dynamic beast that is your tech organization.

What is a Training Gap Analysis?

Essentially, a Training Gap Analysis describes the difference between the job skills that your people are currently gaining or improving through training and the skills that they will need in the immediate future to keep your company competitive.

The idea behind any Gap Analysis is to create a bridge between where your organization is and where it needs to be. In training, it is about making what we train as close to what actually happens on the job.

Who do you conduct Training Gap Analysis with?

Use a pool of diverse employees from all walks of your company. This will improve the results of your analysis, extract vital insight from your workforce, and allow you to see how training impacts everyone in the company. Look to all employees, regardless of seniority, including:

Experienced Employees: Employees who have been around your company for a long period of time have seen both your training programs and your company at large evolve and can hopefully help make suggestions based on their experience.
Managers/Supervisors: Employees who have direct reports are great to leverage, they see the benefits and obstacles of the current program in their own employees.
Newer Employees: Employees who have started in the last six months are my favourite to work with – they have recently gone through your onboarding program and have had a chance to get comfortable in their job. Ask them what they liked, what they found redundant, what they would like to see in the future.

Why conduct Training Gap Analysis?

Carrying out a Training Gap Analysis will help your organization from many different angles, including:

Sending the Same Message: Too often do new employees come out of training where they are being told one thing and told another once they get on the job. This will help all parties promote the same message.
Identifying Trends: If those you converse with during your analysis are all saying the same thing, it can help prioritize transformations moving forward.
Strengthening Relationships: Everyone wants to feel like they are cared for and considered, this is an easy way to build a strong relationship with the rest of the company. Let them be heard, and deliver on what they ask for.

Now there are many ways to go about completing a Training Gap Analysis but the most important message I am trying to push is for your organization to comprehend the significance of completing these analysis. The accuracy and efficiency of your Training Program weighs heavily on the success of your employees.

Purdal Mya is a Corporate Trainer in Intelex Technologies’ Professional Development Office (PDO). Reach him at purdal.mya@intelex.com or use the comments section below.

Training needs assessments help your organization’s training efforts

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Anthony Cogliano

In many ways, Training Needs Assessments are the backbone of an organization’s development and transformational efforts. It may surprise you to learn that less than 50% of small to medium-sized organizations actually conduct official, robust Training Needs Analyses to gain insight into training requirements, and even fewer actually use the acquired data in any meaningful way.

Training isn’t about people sitting in a classroom; it’s about how effective those people can be once they are released into their respective roles. Training builds contributors; focused training builds focused contributors, and focused contributors provide an increased benefit to any organization.

Get Started!

Training Needs Assessments begin with understanding your current state, and being able to identify the various requirements of your desired future state. The future state is highly dependent on a clearly defined set of corporate goals that serve to inform all supporting activities, such as training.

At Intelex, we are fortunate to have a clear set of goals that are defined on an annual basis, and help us to move the organization forward. These goals serve as a target for our Future State. One great thing about our Corporate Goals is that we arrive at them together, by pooling our resources and ideas, and deciding on the best course of action for our company. Other companies can benefit from this highly effective model.

Pick Your Analysis Tools

Once defined, a gap analysis can be performed using any number of tools available to the organization. Interestingly, tools used vary widely from industry to industry, and in fact from company to company in many instances as well.

Whenever considering the tools available for your use, always remember that you are attempting to ensure that a) the tool measures what it’s supposed to measure, and b) the tool produces consistent results when used, so that we can trust our findings and make informed business decisions.

Examples of Tools that can be used by your Organization:

Employee Satisfaction Surveys (what do your employees wish they had?)
Employee Reviews (what are the challenges facing your employees?)
Analyzing KPIs and Balanced Scorecards (what do the metrics tell you about current quality and productivity?)
Observations (what do you actually see occurring day-to-day?)
Informal communication (what do you hear around the water cooler?)
Analyzing the allocation of Educational Allowances (in what areas do employees ask to focus this benefit?)

Use Your Data

With your analysis in hand, training requirements can easily be described, along with required budgets and related ROI. The most important thing for an Organization to keep in mind is that Training, when properly vectored using a Training Needs Analysis, helps reduce costs by eliminating costly mistakes and inefficiencies. Effort expended through training is not wasted; it is leveraged exactly where it is needed every time.

Make It Stick!

Monitoring is a necessity if you’re trying to validate your ROI. Check your Key Performance Indicators and listen to what they tell you:

Has production increased or decreased?
Is production or process quality higher or lower?
Are employees more or less satisfied?
What does your turnover rate look like?

If you find that required positive metrics are still stalled or in decline, do something about it by adjusting your approach. Once you are clear on the problem you need to solve, it’s that much easier to make the right changes. This is what Total Quality Management is all about.

Always remember that your goal is to be in a more favourable position than you were previously. Track your training; track your results; listen to the information. It will only help you to improve your overall Training efforts, and by extension the efficacy and credibility of your organization!

Decoding corporate culture: key questions to consider when evaluating that new job

Posted on August 1, 2012 by Kellie Hart

As I’m sure everyone has been told, the interview process is not only a way for a company to assess your fit, but also your opportunity to interview the company. You need to ask yourself the question, ‘Is this somewhere I would like to come to everyday?’ We are told over and over again that we spend more time with the people we work with than we do with our families, a fact that makes it all the more important to ensure that there is a cultural fit.

Many companies (especially in the tech industry) are moving towards developing corporate cultures that set them apart in order to foster employee engagement and thrive in a tight labour market. The problem is, a company’s corporate culture is not something that you can understand from looking at their mission statement or taking someone’s word for it – you need to experience it for yourself! One type of corporate culture is not suited for everyone; different personalities thrive in different cultures. This is why it is so important to ask questions and be observant throughout the entire interview process.

How do you experience a company’s corporate culture during the interview process? Arrive early for your interview! A lot of a company’s corporate culture can be observed while you sit in the waiting area.

Here are some key areas to take note of throughout the interview process:

Style

What is the dress code?
What is the energy level in the office? (e.g. is it buzzing, quiet, chaotic?)
Where is the office located? Is it a trendy neighborhood or an industrial park?
Does the company believe in work/life balance? What are the business hours?

Office Space

How is the office space arranged?
Who has an office and who has a cubicle?
Are senior executives hidden away on their own floor where you need special access?
What are the common areas used for?
What is displayed on the walls and posted on bulletin boards?
What do employees have on their desks?

Social

How do employees interact with one another?
How do employees interact with you? Are you acknowledged?
What does the company do for fun? What types of social events have they had in the past? How often? (Pictured is a shot from a recent monthly Intelex patio party.)
Are employees working in teams or independently?

Professional Development

What opportunities and resources are available for professional development?
What is the company’s policy on promoting from within?
How is success measured?
How are employees recognized?

Lastly, ask everyone you meet throughout the interview process how long they have been with the company and how they would describe the company’s culture. Take each opportunity to gage whether you are getting an individual perspective with a consistent underlying message. Most important, don’t be afraid to ask the tough questions!

The Top 3 Resources to check out before your Intelex interview

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Bryan Humphries

Interview preparation is everything and truly knowing who you are being interviewed by and what they actually do is critical to making a great impression. At Intelex, doing your research in preparation for your interview is a huge part in showing that you are interested and dedicated to the opportunity of working with us! After all, you are interviewing us, just as much as we are interviewing you. As a potential employee at Intelex – or any company for that matter – you will be responsible for representing the company and the product or service they offer. That being said, it should be something you believe in!

Here at Intelex we have so much content on our website and as a result it can be hard to focus on the key elements in a short time line. To make things a little simpler, as Intelex’s Corporate Recruiter I’ve put together a list of the top three links that really sum up who we are.

Learn more about Intelex, our products and everything we do by watching this presentation by Intelex President and CEO Mark Jaine.
Take a look at our Meet the Team page and video, the latter of which provides a great, unscripted perspective into the real world of Intelex. Our employee testimonials provide a great primer on what it’s like to work at Intelex.
Check out feature interviews with team members Tomas Kuras (embedded below), JP Nadeau and Cheryl O’Connor. Our Facebook Page is also another great way to view these testimonials ad get a sense of our corporate culture.

Got questions? Use the comments area below. And don’t forget to check back every second Wednesday for our Professional Development Office (PDO) blog series.

Top 5 tips for setting a great foundation for new employee expectations

Posted on July 4, 2012 by Purdal Mya

As a child I had set of family values that were established in our house that acted as guidelines for my behavior. My mother would always remind me anytime I would steer away from these guidelines why they were important. Family values can be whatever works best for you and your family. Some of our values included “Dream Big”, “Always Be Honest” and my favourite, “Laugh Out Loud”. Looking back on them now, I believe these family values acted more like expectations of the people living in the house.

These expectations helped me become a contributing, respectful member of the family and shaped who I am today. I believe the same theory can be applied to the workplace. If you set expectation for your employees they can easily identify what is required of them and perform to that standard. Setting high yet attainable expectations for your employees to reach can help uncork brilliant potential, and who reaps the rewards of that? Everyone – the individual employees, his or her subordinates, management, the company at large, and most of the individual themselves.

So how do you set expectation of your employees? Who should be involved in setting expectations? How do you measure success of reaching expectations? Below are five ideas that, if blended together, can provide you and your employees a great foundation for setting expectations and achieving mutual success.

Don’t wait until they arrive – Get a head start: Why not let your new employees know what their first day couple days are going to look like? This can happen during the recruitment cycle or it can happen before their first day of employment. This ‘preflight’ stage helps put new employees’ minds at ease and sets the stage for you to deliver on what you have promised – an easy win when it comes to setting expectations. One of the ways I have seen work is by emailing all new employees before they start to let them know what their first day is going to look like, where they can park, how much parking cost, where to eat around the area, who to ask for when they first get in, and most importantly what they can expect from their new career on their first day. This allows new employees to understand the outcome of their first few days and also allows them to prepare for what is being thrown at them.
Prepare for their arrival: A new employee’s first experience should be one that is well-organized, regardless what other day-to-day demands and responsibilities you are facing. We all get busy, but ensure you carve out time beforehand to be ready when new employees come on board. When a new employee realizes that the company they committed too is prepared for them, it helps puts any jitters they may have had to rest and allows them to focus on learning the ways of the new company.
Expectation setting is a team sport: Once your employee is feeling settled into his or her role, sit down with them and ask them what they are expecting, indicate what you are expecting and come up with how you both think you will get there. You should do this early on to get a head start on the expectation train. The simple interaction can make sure all parties are motivated to meeting the same goals. It also informs the new employee that he or she has to come in and perform.
Everyone loves numbers: Now I am not sure if everyone loves numbers, but in this day in age, those in the business world certainly respond well to numbers. Provide your new employee with metrics related to goals and targets that should strive to attain. This will provide them with a tangible goal to strive towards that indicate success.
Put their shoes on your feet: I firmly believe you cannot create expectations for someone unless you can comprehend where they are coming from. In which every way you can, understand their job, their responsibilities, their strengths and their weakness. Use this information to challenge them and provide them with expected goals you intend for them to meet.

Again, embedding some of these simple tips into your recruitment and professional development programs is a great way to expedite onboarding, boost employee comfort, minimize confusion, improve retention and, ultimately, improve organizational efficiency.

Purdal Mya is a Corporate Trainer in Intelex’s Professional Development Office (PDO). Every second Wednesday, different members of the Intelex PDO provide great insights on everything from professional development to hiring and recruiting to career planning right here on the Official Intelex Blog.

Getting your resume to the top of the pile

Posted on June 20, 2012 by Kellie Hart

A few weeks back in Bryan’s blog (The Top 5 Tips for Nailing the All-Important Phone Interview), he mentioned that the Professional Development Office (PDO) would be providing this series of blogs to provide candidates with more insight into the Intelex hiring process as well as best practices for making your next career move. This week we wanted to focus on winning that phone interview – starting with your resume!

These key areas make a successful resume at Intelex:

Readability

Is your resume easy to read and navigate? We read through hundreds of resumes each week, trying to get to the core of what you can bring to Intelex. Rather than having your resume read like a copy of your previous job description, list specific projects and contributions you had in your last role.

Personality

Everyone has an opinion about what a resume should look like but in the end you need to be comfortable with your resume. After all, your resume is a reflection of you! At Intelex we feel our Corporate Culture has made us successful and as we grow we want to continue to enhance that culture. Your job is to sell yourself and what you could bring to the Intelex team.

Balance

Resumes are a balancing act – too much and you overwhelm your audience, where as too little leaves your audience with too many questions. Tell us what you think we need to know and leave the nitty-gritty details for the interview.

Setting Yourself Up For Success

Skill and technical summaries are a great way to let us know what you can do, and it is also a great idea to connect these summaries to the roles where you have used them.

Staying Current

As a software company we are in an industry that is constantly changing – we like to see what candidates are doing to keep on top of new trends (courses, personal projects, conferences, certifications).

Also, keep your resume up to date. Let us know what have you been up to until now. And finally, this may be the most obvious point, but it is constantly overlooked: Keep it professional – spell check and proofread your resume before sending it!

Considering applying to Intelex? Check out our current opportunities on our Careers Page.

Next time in our Professional Development series of blog posts, published every second Wednesday, Corporate Trainer Purdal Mya will cover Expectations of New Intelexians.

How to hire a great product manager

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Faith Franz

After writing my last two posts about great product managers and career paths to become great product managers, I thought I should write a post for all the employers (like myself) that are looking to hire great product managers. Probably more so than any other role, identifying and hiring a great product manager is very challenging. Since the job requires a breadth of knowledge to be successful, the interview process requires a breadth of questions to be asked to get feel for whether or not the candidate will be successful.

So what specifically do I focus on trying to understand when I interview a product management candidate? There are a few key items, and I’ve outlined them below.

Are They Wicked Smart?

To me this is the most important thing. If they’re not wicked smart, I won’t even consider them. Since product managers are faced with an endless amount of decisions, a great one needs to be able to think quickly and analytically to provide well thought out answers to questions posed by developers, sales reps, marketers, account managers, etc. Every decision they make could have a butterfly effect down the road, so raw intelligence is a requirement to understand what the consequences of their decisions could be.

So how do you test to see if someone is wicked smart? Often times you can get a feel for it in the interview process or by looking at the candidate’s credentials (i.e. advanced degree, top school, high-profile jobs, etc.) However, I also like to pose brain-teasers too to see how a candidate breaks down a problem and tries to solve it. If you need some brain teasers to use in your interviews, do a quick search on Google and you’ll find numerous questions and answers for great brain teasers that are used by Google and Microsoft during their interviews for product managers and developers.

Have They Successfully Shipped Something Before?

I’m sure you’d never hire a developer unless they’ve written code before, so why would you hire a product manager if they haven’t shipped something before? Only those that have successfully shipped a product before truly understand how complex a process this is, it requires the coordination of many activities and the cooperation of all parts of the business, lead by the product manager.

By simply asking a candidate to walk you through the process they followed when shipping a product they led from concept to launch and beyond, you can get a solid feel for their selflessness, attitude, curiosity, persuasiveness, communication skills, product instincts and desire to completely own a product.

Do They Have a Strong Technical Background?

A great product manager needs to be able to talk shop with the developers they are leading. If they can’t do this, they won’t be respected and won’t be successful. It’s that simple.

Since the amount of technical experience required varies from product to product, it’s hard to recommend specific questions that should be asked. However, you should be asking your product management candidates some of the same technical questions you’d ask your developers to see if they’ll be able to talk shop.

Do They Have Great Product Instincts?

I touched on it earlier, but having great product instincts is another essential attribute of a great product manager. That said, assessing whether or not somebody has great product instincts is very subjective and many interviewers have a difficult time trying to evaluate this attribute.

So what questions should you ask to poke at a candidates product instincts? I recommend general, open-ended questions like the following:

How do you know a product is designed well?
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in the design of a product?
What’s a great product that you’ve recently tried? Why do you like it? What is the biggest issue with it?

By posing questions like these, and other similar ones, you’ll get a feel for the candidates products instincts pretty quickly.

Are They a Leader?

In order for a product manager to highly successful, they have to be leader. They need to be convincing and have the ability to lead a diverse group of people as they ship a product.

Identifying a great leader is relatively easy during an interview process as the great ones naturally convey their great leadership abilities through their confidence, effective communication and persuasiveness. That said, there are many questions you can ask to poke at a persons leadership ability. One of the best lists of questions I’ve seen is in this post on the blog of Michael Hyatt, Chairman of Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Conclusion

Hiring a great product manager is hard! That said, if you use the guidelines above, identifying and hiring a great one for your organization will be easier than ever before.

Robin Dindayal is the VP of Product management at Intelex Technologies. This post was originally published on his blog, Notes from the Product Management Trenches.