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Internship Myth Busters

Posted by Marv Russell 05/18/12
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Today everyone is searching for an internship to gain valuable job experience, fulfill course requirements, or to test-drive their career choice. Getting an internship is smart but first you must find an internship opportunity. Many students believe that there are few internship opportunities, and that they all belong to people with connections: I don’t agree!

I spent 30 years in HR, and worked my way up from HR Generalist to Senior VP of HR for multinational corporations, in a variety of industries including manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and health care. I’ve worked in non-profit, government, and for profit. I’ve served on boards. I worked overseas as an ex-pat for 8 years, and taught in the HEC Paris MBA program.

AND IN EVERY SINGLE PLACE I’VE WORKED, EVERY FIELD, EVERY COUNTRY, WE’VE HIRED INTERNS AND SELDOM WERE THESE INTERSHIPS PUBLICIZED.

For years family, friends and colleagues introduced me to college students and asked me to help them get an internship, a first job, and for career advice. In some cases I was able to personally hire those interns. Other times I made referrals that resulted in internships. But always I was able to provide advice, counsel, resources, recommendations and tips that gave the student information and practical steps that made their internship search more likely to result in getting an internship.

But first, there are a couple key points you need to know:

  1. If you don’t have an internship or summer job today, you’re way behind and it is going to be tough to find one now. But not impossible. Interns are hired every month of the year. And if they’re hiring someone, why can’t they hire you?
  2. Interning is a competitive market. Some students are  paying to be interns! Adults undergoing career changes are competing with college students. But the reality is that the internship doesn’t always go to the best qualified student: internships go to the person who who gets hired for the internship.
  3. If you’re looking for your first job after graduation it’s a competitive job market, and an internship allows you to gain valuable work experience, meet potential employers and learn on-the-job information about your chosen field. An internship doesn’t guarantee a paying job. But it does guarantee enhanced qualifications on your resume.
  4. Your resume is vitally important. Career Center tell students that resume should be no more than 1 page. Those of us in business disagree. A resume must be organized to demonstrate clearly the candidates knowledge, skills, capabilities and successes. But it must also be easily read and structured in a professional manner, using proper fonts and the right amount of space to tell your story.

Businesses are hiring. There are internships and jobs, but they are available to those who are prepared and those willing to work hard to create their own opportunities.

Internship Myth Busters:

1.  MYTH:  All the internships are gone

     FACT:    Most companies will hire interns: if they are given a good reason and you are the right person. Internships are available every month of the year if you know where to look and how to present yourself.

2.  MYTH:  You need connections to get an internship

     FACT:    You have more connections than you realize. Build your contact list and find  connections within the companies to get  an internship.

3.  MYTH:  My field does not have internships

     FACT:    Regardless of their size or field companies want and need interns: they just might not know it yet. What they don’t want are headaches and interns who don’t take initiative, or aren’t willing to work.

4.  MYTH:  All internships are unpaid

     FACT:    Some internships are paid, some are unpaid. Just as some internships are for school credit, and others are to gain valuable job experience. Both paid and unpaid, credit and non-credit are valuable job experience and good for your resume.

5.  MYTH: An internship is not a real job, you just make coffee and run errands.

     FACT:   An internship is a real job, and yes, sometimes interns are sent to Starbucks. And sometimes the boss makes coffee runs. An internship is a valuable lesson into how companies really operate, and how to successfully interact with your coworkers and earn respect.

I did not plan to offer an Internship Coaching Program, but because I’ve been asked so many times – by students, recent grads, and frantic parents – for internship advice I am offering a limited number of internship coaching sessions.

Get more information or register now for Internship Coaching

Programs and Performance: A Winning Combination

Posted by Marv Russell 05/11/12
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There’s nothing like a little controversy to get a headline. Former GE CEO Jack Welch and his wife Suzy Welch spoke at a conference for women executives, resulting in the next day’s WSJ headline: Women, Welch Clash at Forum.

The controversy: Welch said that performance, more than development programs, should chart your career.

I’m confused: where’s the controversy? I firmly believe in:

  • programs that encourage hiring and developing women, minorities and other diverse groups
  • programs that provide mentors and career guides
  • programs that recruit and develop talent

And from his statements and his well-documented career, so does Jack Welch. So is the controversy that women, and other minorities, must deliver and actually perform?

As a minority, I was fortunate that the majority of my bosses gave me opportunities and allowed me to learn and achieve and grow, and advance my career. Just as my white male colleagues were given those opportunities.

I was also fortunate that I was only promoted because I performed. And in my career, I have been put in the position of not promoting a minority who was underperforming, when my bosses wanted that individual promoted to improve corporate minority staffing statistics. Why would I promote a minority or anyone who, given every advantage and opportunity, is underperforming? When a colleague is performing, and worthy of promotion?  Yes, we need to keep stats on recruitment and advancement of all types of employees as checks that we are doing our job by providing equal opportunities, recognizing and managing any intrinsic biases and valuing the diverse talent and culture and blends of people that exist within the workforce.

Diverse and nontraditional employees deserve and need to be given opportunities to grow and perform. Non-diverse employees deserve and need to be given opportunities to grow and perform as well. It’s the employee’s job to take advantage of their opportunities and to perform.

Our job, our responsibility, our challenge as managers: to recruit and develop a team to lead and manage our organization. Then, to give the best performers, those who can lead and manage and achieve our objectives, the recognition and responsibility they have earned by promotions, increased responsibilites, and salary increases.

Programs and performance are a winning combination for all our employees.

Teaching Ethics and Leadership After School

Posted by Marv Russell 05/04/12
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I read the HEC Paris MBA program is expanding their ethics and leadership course requirements to meet corporate recruiters’ hiring goals. When I worked in Paris I had the privilege of teaching two courses at HEC Paris’ MBA program, International HR and Organizational Behavior. HEC is considered by French and European corporations  the premier business school in Europe and no less than the finest schools in the US. I am delighted to see that HEC remains on the cutting edge of what a global, renown business program should aspire to provide its students; and that HEC is investing in what I believe to be fundamental for Essential Exceptional Ethical Leadership™.

Requiring ethics and leadership programs as a part of business education is essential to the needs of future leaders of our global economy. But what about today’s current leaders, today’s executives – and those growing, developing and climbing through the corporate hierarchy of leadership opportunities – those who are no longer a captive audience, who are not actively pursuing structured educational programs.

As an HR leader one of my roles in the company was to identify developmental needs and provide learning opportunities at all levels of the organization, and to secure external, customized programs or develop internal programs to elevate the performance of our workforce and prepare inividual contributors to meet the future needs of the organization.

To provide additional support for corporate leaders in areas of ethics and leadership your organization should consider:

  • rewards and recognition in consideration of model behaviors
  • jobs assignments that require new ideas and thoughts and paradigm shifts
  • group case studies that probe decision-making in the face of ethical dilemmas

Ethics and the News: What Behaviors Do We Really Demand?

Posted by Marv Russell 04/27/12
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I talk and write alot about ethics and leadership. In fact my 3E Leadership program is based on the fundamentals of Essential, Exceptional and Ethical leadership. Occassionally I’ll hear a comment like “that’s not a new message”.

Well, maybe ethics in leadership is not a new message, but if you’re watching the news recently its clearly a message that needs to be repeated again and again until we learn it:

  • a professional basketball player has been suspended for intentionally elbowing an opposing player, while a pro football coach is fired for paying his players to injure opponents
  • a major US retailer is caught paying bribes to a foreign government to speed local construction projects
  • a former presidential candidate is on trial for using campaign funds to cover an affair, while a former governor is in federal prison for trying to sell a senate seat

Sports. Business. Politics. Clearly the message that we want and need ethical leaders needs to be louder and stronger. And just as clearly, a message is coming through that the public wants and needs ethical leadership: or we wouldn’t be seeing these stories in the news.

But how often does our demand for ethical leadership conflict with our desire for the benefits that unethical leadership can provide:

  • is it OK that a college football players skips a few classes as long as the team is winning on the field?
  • do we oppose foreign child labor until it raises the prices of our clothing?
  • when the “other” political party wages a dirty campaign do we insist that our party get even and fight dirty too?

We demand ethical leadership. We also have to become ethical followers. It’s our choice.

Scotoma: Finding – and Opening – Your Blind Spot

Posted by Marv Russell 04/20/12
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I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal: What’s in Your Blind Spot?  When I provide Executive High Performance Coaching or lead training and development workshops I often discuss finding your scotoma:

What is a scotoma?

Our inability to see things that matter. Our psychological blind spots. Metaphorically our inability to perceive our personality traits that are obvious to others.

Finding our blind spots is only half the battle: the other half is opening our blind spots to change; then making those changes that allow us to succeed in our goals and ambitions; whether those ambitions be personal or business, financial or spiritual, short-term or in the distant future.

Last week I talked about the book MINDSET: The New Psychology of Success.  When I’m working 1:1 or in small groups, I use tools that facilitate identifying your scotoma. One of the best tools is 360-degree feedback. With 360-degree feedback its tough to deny our short comings – our blinds spots are revealed by those around us. The challenge is our willingness to accept these perceptions and do something about it.

Opening yourself to understanding your blind spots is hard and some will never acknowledge their blind spots. However, most of us want to embrace change in order to  maximize our potential.

Remember…I was blind but now I can see!

Marvism

When my mind, my ideas, my ways of thinking are fixed, my leadership capabilities cannot be fully appreciated, engaged and maximized

MINDSET: The New Psychology of Success

Posted by Marv Russell 04/13/12
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I was given 3 copies of this book, I’ve shared one with my son. And now I’m sharing it with all of you.

Written by psychologist Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., Mindset: The New Psychology of Success is written in an easy flowing, coversational style that makes it appropriate for students as well as business people, parents, athletes, teachers and coaches, and community leaders.

Dweck’s position is that in order to achieve success, each of us must have the right brain mindset: a fixed mindset can prevent us from achieving our goals while an open mindset gives us the determination and resourcefullness to achieve our goals through hard work and motivation.

Mindset is filled with concrete examples of how each of us can open and grow our mindset, and how parents and teachers can develop the mindset of children and students:

  • Jackie Joyner-Kersee at age 15 unexpectedly winning the heptathalon at the AAU Junior Olympics
  • Jack Welch’s devotion to his personal development and the growth of GE by keeping his ego in check
  • educator Marva Collins teaching inner-city grade school children to read Shakespeare
  • Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand overcoming severe chronic fatigue to write her best-selling story of an equally challenged racehorse

The growth mindset is based on the belief in change…about how  kids and adults who found their way to using their abilities.

- Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

 

Chief Diversity Officer: Support From The Top

Posted by Marv Russell 03/30/12
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I was keynote speaker last weekend at the University of Notre Dame’s Annual Global Diversity Conference sponsored by the Mendoza School of Business, the number one business school in the nation. In my lecture I spoke of the early days of diversity in one of the largest companies in the world – United Technologies.

One of my earliest corporate mentors was Paul Farnham, Vice President of HR at United Technologies Corporation Carrier in Syracuse. With his support, I was able to hire a Chief Diversity Officer in 1989, at a time when Affirmative Action was still the standard and a “diversity” program was a newly emerging term describing the workforce composition of the next millennium. The role of the CDO was to lead and inspire the organization’s diversity strategies, and we were forging ahead with an exciting new strategy to hire, develop and retain diverse ethnic groups. In those early days inclusion had much more emphasis on females in the workplace and the balance of work/life.

Paul and I promoted Marilyn – a 30-something white female – from within the Carrier HR Generalist ranks. With Paul, a 60-something white male, as the executive champion, our diversity program was off and running: we had one of first Chief Diversity Officers in the nation. I was also in my early 30s. Marilyn and I and a couple others stood out in the UTC Carrier executive offices – female and black junior executives were still something not too common in corporate America. We were both on the “minority high potential list.” When UTC had big corporate leadership meetings at HQ in Hartford, CT, we were always assured a seat since no longer could these gatherings occur with only white males in attendance.

Paul, Marilyn and I planned an afternoon strategy session focused on putting together an action plan for our new Diversity Program. Around 5pm, Marilyn kicked my leg under the table, and pointed to her watch. It was getting late. The date was October 31. Halloween. And we both had young children at home, eager to go trick-or-treating. Do we dare say anything?

She and I nodded to one another. It was now or never – the test. I spoke up to Paul, and reminded him of the time and the date, and the big occassion. Extremely apologetic, Paul apologized and said “why didn’t you say something before” and hurried us out the door, and home to our families.

Would that be a big deal today? Probably not; but yet maybe someplace there are young men and women still hesitant to speak up and leave for fear of being seen as not committed  to their work. But 25 years ago, it took courage for a young female and a young black leader to speak up, say their families come first, and leave the office in the middle of an important meeting. But having a boss, mentor and Diversity Champion like Paul Farnham made that possible, and set the example for us on what kind of boss we wanted to be. No stereotypical company-man as we watch today on Mad Men, but a caring compassionate professional who understood the need and benefits to balancing a professional and personal life. And when a work-life issue presented itself, rather than protesting it or mocking it, Paul immediately recognized the importance of a diverse workforce that can meet the goals of the company while maintaining a healthy family life. His simple little act of consideration began a new day for our journey.

I was lucky to have Paul Farnham as a boss and mentor and our champion, for him to understand and actively support the needs and benefits of a diverse workforce, and I sincerely hope that I carry on the lessons he taught me. Diversity has come a long way and the issues are more complex than ever, but Paul, Marilyn and Marvin were on the cutting edge of change that Halloween Night in 1989.

University of Notre Dame Fifth Annual Diversity Conference

Posted by Marv Russell 03/23/12
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This weekend I’ll be attending and speaking at the University of Notre Dame Fifth Annual Diversity Conference, hosted by the MBA program of the Mendoza College of Business. Part of the message I’ll be sharing is inspired by the actions, beliefs and influences of former ND President Father Theodore Hesburgh, who walked the talk: he lived a life that demonstrated his commitment to a world possessing tolerance and equality, a  university that models diverse thinking and a diverse influence of the Catholic church.

Diversity is a state of mind

  • a state of mind that permits an open and practical acceptance of differences in others
  • that allows us to look beyond the emotional confines and scotoma derived by culture, language, race, sex
  • allows us to search for the unique talent and gifts of others and engage talents to their highest potential

Diversity is a state of mind that allows the organization to evolve to higher levels of performance through its ability to mélange, then maximize varying thoughts, practices and talents.

The Difference:

  • Historically, organizations value a monolithic culture

o  rigid thinking…rigid ideals…based upon history

vs

  • Pluralistic Cultures where different cultures are permitted to co-exist

o   where there is a valuation and integration of diverse perspectives and multiple cultures ideologies that may otherwise be dismissed

Example…

  • Notre Dame’s strategic decision in 1972 to admit women
  • Fr. Hesburgh: “Everything was turning on its head in those days … Old customs, practices and traditions were set on end. With everything changing and being in flux, it was time to go coed.”
  • In fact, the progressive tone of the 1960s and ’70s may have helped ease the transition.
  • Fr. Ted’s point…

o  The ability of men and women to live and study together increased their sensitivities and insights and

o  this inclusion broadened the university’s cultural perspective…which in turn

o  broadened its educational range and capabilities and its global impact on education and the political and socioeconomic issues of today

Diversity is a state of mind, followed by actions.

Ethics in Leadership: Integrity and Trust Matter

Posted by Marv Russell 03/16/12
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The best leaders, those who have the greatest impact, possess an important characteristic: They know that ethics, integrity, and trust matter.

Ethics and morals are connected, both personally and professionally. Ethics are the foundation with which we are able to explore standards of morality. The concept provides the answer to doing the things that we should and must do in life, ultimately avoiding harm to others when we are otherwise working in our own self-interest. In terms of ethics, we expect leaders to find discipline and self-control by understanding and seeing what is right, what is wrong, and of all the things that might be right, picking the best one. In thinking about our personal moral standards, we don’t need to rationalize or justify. We need to follow our hearts and our guts. Those are our guides to our best decision-making.

Here’s the challenge I give people in my seminars and workshops: If you make an unethical choice, be prepared to sacrifice pride, integrity, and reputation. Unethical choices carry consequences, including the loss of character, prestige, or honor.

Doing what is right is not always easy. It’s often very difficult. But if you don’t follow your heart, if you don’t do what is right and ethical and moral, living with yourself is not going to be easy, either.

Marvisim
Business morality means knowing your moral and ethical fabric and
how this fabric is woven into a natural blend of meaningful business
decisions that positively affect all stakeholders.

Ethics in Leadership: More Than a Loophole

Posted by Marv Russell 03/02/12
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As each newly elected candidate is sworn in they embark on establishing Ethics Standards throughout his administration. My brother-in-law works at GE, and each year he is required to sign an ethics policy agreeing that he will not merely follow the ethics policy, but also the ethics policy intent.

3E Leadership is built on instilling ethical intent into how we lead and manage our organizations. Do we have a policy strictly forbidding kickbacks, bribery, or other compensation from vendors? Governments have been brought down for less:  German President Wulff resigned over “free” secret vacation trips from friends, while former IL Governor Rod Blagoyevich was sentenced to 14 years for trying to sell President Obama’s former Senate seat.

Taking the extreme opposite ethical position can be equally lacking leadership responsibility. As a senior executive with a healthcare firm, I was offered the opportunity to participate in a golf tournament hosted by a supplier, and attended by many of my professional peers and colleagues. The golf course was a 20 minute car drive away, there were no grandiose “swag bags” or gifts: it was golf, lunch and networking. Corporate business as usual. Following corporate policy, before accepting I informed the legal department of the invitation to golf, and several days later was informed that yes, I could participate in the golf tournament provided I declared a vacation day and paid the supplier $675, which had arbitrarily been determined by my company to be the “value” of a day of golf. Did I decide to golf? No. Do I believe I would have been violating corporate ethics policy by accepting a suppliers invitation for a day of golf? No.

Ethics can be a tricky issue. Did you run a red light, or a yellow light. Did you cheat on your taxes, or merely declare a legal deduction. Were you bribed by a supplier, or did you simply accept their honor as Sales Executive of the Year.

Intent is hard to measure, impossible to prove and invisible the eye. But ethical intent is often easy to determine: if you think it might be wrong, it probably is wrong. Sometimes there are no hard and fast lines in the sand to cross. The 3E Leader has developed a confidence in their ability to understand the root of the ethical issues and the consequences of one’s action. Integrity and trust matter. Each of us must have the moral fabric that is the basis of the behaviors we know to be appropriate in any given circumstances.


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