I'll Be on the Ronn Owens Program TODAY

Today, Tuesday, Nov 1 from 10:00 am to 11:00 am, I will be the guest on KGO AM-810's Ronn Owens Program, among California's most listened-to shows.

I've been his regularly appearing career expert for 25 years now, so unless he changes things, he'll ask me a few questions about work issues and mostly, I'll answer callers' questions about work.

You can hear it live on KGO-AM 810 in the San Francisco Bay Area, or anywhere at www.kgoam810.com. The show will be archived on that site for a week afterwards.

I invite you to call: 80-80-810 from anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. Or 415-80-80-810 from anywhere.

Don't Elect. Select: a better way to pick our legislators

In the latest installment of my "What's the Big Idea?" series in the Washington Post, I make the radical proposal that we'd have better legislators if they were not elected but selected using passive criteria, like the way stocks are included in an index fund.

That may seem crazy. After all, electing our leaders is a hallowed tradition, foundational to the democracy created by our Constitution. But I invite you to read the column and then decide. HERE is the link.

How to Do Life: what they didn't teach you in school

I've just written THIS article for Mensa's national magazine, the Mensa Bulletin. It contains some of the best ideas from my recently completed book manuscript, How to Do Life: what they didn't teach you in school.

It offers not-obvious but helpful ideas on career, recreation, money, education, coupling, parenting, spirituality, plus a few all-purpose tips for living the life well-led.

Create Jobs: Replace Geometry with Entrepreneurship

I'm writing a series called "What's the Big Idea?" for the Washington Post.

It will offer fresh solutions for big problems. The first is a way to create jobs: Replace Geometry with Entrepreneurship.

If you'd like to comment on it, you'll get more readers if you write your comment on that Washington Post page and then copy and paste it onto this blog.

How to Land a Good Job in a Bad Market

Here's my next column for the Mensa periodical, The Intelligencer. I thought you might like a look:

Landing a Good Job in a Bad Market

Of course, most want ads get hordes of applicants but most of those don't stand a chance: They're jargon-filled, generic, utterly undistinguished. I'm certainly not advocating silly ploys like including a jar of jalapeno preserves saying, "I can get you out of the hottest jam."

I'm asking you to create an above-average application. Start by playing detective on the employer's site: That's a way to learn its priorities and how it likes to portray itself. Dirt on the employer is more likely found by Googling it--Don't forget Google's blog and news searches. Use LinkedIn, your alumni directory, etc., to find people at the organization with whom you're connected. Try to set up an in-person or phone chat on what the employer is like and what to emphasize in an application.

In applying, if your resume is unlikely to be top-of-the-heap, for example, you're a career changer or have a gap in employment, consider substituting a bio. That allows you to highlight only what you want. A resume is a tool to help employers--it lays all of you bare. As with clothing, most of us look better with some parts hidden.

Your cover letter and resume should be devoid of clichéd job-seeker language such as "I'm a self-starter seeking an opportunity with a dynamic company." That leaches all chemistry and credibility from your application: The employer will feel s/he's reading from a job-hunting book not from the candidate. Do tell PAR stories: a problem you faced, how you approached it, and its positive resolution. Choose stories that would impress your target employer. That's a key rule: Everything you do in the job search should be subjected to this test: "Would this make this employer more likely to hire me?"

Do put your Mensa membership on your resume. The right employers will like it; the wrong ones won't.

If possible, with your application, include one or more pieces of collateral material . One of my clients applied for a sales job with a government contractor. He included a list of 50 federal decisionmakers he'd call if he got the job. Another client, a career changer, to show the employer that he knew a lot about hospital management, wrote a three-page White Paper called, Keys to Effective Hospital Management in 2012 and Beyond. He did the research for that paper just as he might have a term paper in school: by synthesizing articles he found on Google.

Of course, at least half of jobs are obtained through a connection. List the people in your network. Twenty-five is good, 50 is better. Next to each name, decide if it's best to just email them, invite them for coffee, dinner, to a party, visit them at their office, etc. When you contact them, ask if your resume makes them want to hire you. Then ask if they know of anyone you should talk with. If not, ask if they'd keep their ears open and if you're still looking in a month, would they mind if you followed up. That recruits them as a scout--they're more likely to hear of something during the month than just when you contacted them.

If your network is paltry or used up, you'll need to expand it. Could you volunteer somewhere you'd have face-time with potential employers, for example, on a non-profit board? Get active in a church? Join a service club such as Rotary? A hobby group such as an investment club or dog-owner's meetup? A political organization? Of course, go to more Mensa events--Hey, even the Intelligencer Peel-and-Stick party might help!

Importantly, even in a lousy job market, it's important to vet potential employers. During the interview, ask questions such as, "Why is this position vacant?," "What kind of problems would you most hope I'd solve?," "What would you hope I'd accomplish in the first 90 days that would help my boss get a gold star?" After being offered the job, ask to visit the workplace. There, assess the vibe: Do most employees seem content? Hang out in the break room. Ask questions like, "What should I know about working here that might not appear in the employee handbook?

Especially in this job market, there sure are no guarantees, but those are my best bets for landing a good job in a bad market.

Performance Reviews: Advice for the Supervisor and Supervisee

In theory, the formal performance review is valuable: It provides useful feedback and a rational basis for determining pay and promotions.

Alas, in practice, performance evaluations too often result in the employee feeling unfairly judged and, in turn, demotivated. Bosses don't like doing formal reviews because they require much preparation and paperwork. Another disadvantage: bosses may feel an annual review can largely replace ongoing, just-in-time, informal feedback.

It is the latter, evaluating by walking around, that is usually most useful. Unless dealing with a remote workforce, the good boss spends a lot of time walking around among the supervisees, stopping to give attaboys/girls, and asking "How are things going?"

The boss might accept the typical "fine," or follow up with, for example, "Any way I can be of help to you?" Sometimes, the employee will ask for additional resources, which you may or may not want to give, but sometimes will elicit a request for your evaluation or guidance.

Whether or not you're evaluating by walking around, if you think there's a problem with an employee, unless s/he suffers from clearly too-high self-confidence and thus needs a wake-up call, start with tact and good listening. For example,

John, I've noticed that your reports (or whatever) haven't been great. Anything I can do to help, or is there something I need to understand that explains it?

Then listen carefully. Indeed, there may be a reasonable explanation. Then, if possible, instead of imposing a solution, let alone a punishment, it's wise to ask, "So what if anything do you propose we do?" Even if you don't fully agree or you doubt that will solve the problem, it's usually wise to say, "Fair enough. Let's try it." Your simply having raised the issue while being face-saving, not punitive, may be enough to sufficiently improve the employee's performance.

If that light hand turns out insufficient, you can always later offer suggestions, a structure for accountability, or if necessary, termination. It's usually wise to be punitive only if the aforementioned good-cop approach is unsuccessful--a confrontation often yields worse problems than it alleviates.

That said, many employers make the mistake of not cutting their losses early enough. In general, employers quickly know if it's wiser to replace an employee or to keep trying to get the employee to improve.

Unfortunately, today, dismissing an employee usually demands much stressful effort: months of written documentation of poor performance, and often contentious meetings to discuss an improvement plan with the employee. The whole process usually engenders defensiveness, may well hurt performance, and even cause the employee to sabotage your business and/or start legal action.

It's often wiser to try to counsel-out the employee, for example, "As you know it's been a bit of a struggle. You have real strengths (insert), which aren't made best use of on this job. How'd you like me to try to help you find a better-suited position in or perhaps outside the company?" Indeed, many people who perform poorly in one job could do better with different responsibilities or with a different boss or coworkers.

If You're Getting a Performance Review

Collect a goodie file: kudos, list of accomplishments, especially those that would build the bottom line. Send it to your boss in advance of your review, saying you hope these will be considered in the review.

Many employees exacerbate the effect of a negative evaluation by their response. Even if you're furious, don't respond right away. If you can muster up the restraint, say something like, "I appreciate the candid feedback. Of course, it's difficult to swallow so I'd like to take a few days to let it sink in." Then, with your reflexive anger likely reduced, you're more likely to respond wisely.

If you ethically can, say, "I'll work on it." If you can't, it's usually wise to respond gently, for example, "I thought my work has been better than that. Could you give me examples to help me better understand?" If you sense there is legitimacy to your boss's concern, you might ask the boss for a bit of help in improving. That would increase your boss's investment in you. I know it's not easy to stay on your A game when attacked, but it's usually worth trying to exercise restraint.

Employee evaluations are often dreaded by both employees and employers, but handled with delicacy and emphasizing just-in-time, informal, situation-specific feedback, dispensed in a positive face-saving way, performance review can be among the most beneficial components of a manager's job and of real benefit to employees.

Time's attack on capitalism and my response

On Time.com, Toure' wrote, "America has institutional inequities built into its structures that guarantee that millions of Blacks have no chance at success."

Here's my response:

That is true for tens of millions of people of all races. And hundreds of millions of people of all races have a greater chance of success than under any other system. Of course, people of any race who are unintelligent, lazy, unethical, emotionally unstable, and/or or not resilient will have a low probability of success, especially in today's tough job market that is toughened by global competition, and because of a wealth of policies that redistribute dollars and human resources away from the job creators.

And yes, in a socialist system, such people would no doubt benefit, because they'd get an equal share of resources, no matter their productivity, their merit, but that brings with it huge liabilities to the overall society because of that very redistribution: the aforementioned reallocation of resources from those most likely to abet society through innovation, leadership, and job creation, to those with the least. And of course there's the demotivating effect of paying people the same whether they're productive or not. The liabilities of that became clear, for example, in the endless Soviet bread lines. But we have a short memory.

So I have only have a minor disagreement with the author's statement, "America has institutional inequities built into its structures that guarantee that millions of Blacks have no chance at success." I would replace "no chance" with "little chance."

But far more important, for the statement to be placed in the necessary context, I would add, "But other institutional structures, such as the more socialist one the author advocates, are likely to cause far greater net harm to the nation's people.