I have been very busy lately. But not so busy that I still can’t try to work on a few projects. I emphasize the try because it has been like a waterfall of projects. These that include:

• An ebook - “What we Teach | How we Learn”
• On October 8, 2010 I will be a part of two presentations for the Greater Cincinnati American Society for Training and Development - Fall Conference
• Running my local GCASTD chapter Learning Breakfast
• October 19, 2010 I have been asked to present at the Cincinnati Regional Chamber of Commerce – HYPE Talent Symposium – Cincinnati, OH
• Just finished up the HR Carnival: The Carnie Categories
• Starting work on our local SHRM chapter GCHRA web/blogsite (work in progress)
• Trying to get more and more people to subscribe to this blog (shameless plug)!

This with this stuff, meetings with colleagues, the job,family, plus getting new carpet, painting trim and replacing doors makes for a busy guy. wheewwww

But again, I was able to contribute to the October Leadership Development Carnival: Autumn Fun Edition. It’s up so go over to this month’s ringleader Mary Jo Asmus right here.

With are over 30 awesome leadership development posts, Mary Jo did a great job doing the work.

Enjoy

I am very happy to present this months series of the HR Carnival. Take a look around after reading the other post in this carnival and tell me what you think of ReThinkHR.org. Also if you like it, feel free to click that RSS subscribe button on the right! Oh and follow me on twitter. Enough about this blog.

For this HR Carnival I didn’t give a theme to the submitters of the carnival, only because I couldn’t think of one at the time. However, after reading all the post I thought the best start would be to give a brief history of a “Carnival”. Not the HR Carnival but the Carnival of our youth. The carnies, the crap cotton candy and cheap dirty rides that would stop in our neighborhoods once a year. So here it goes:

What is a carnival?

The inception of the Carnival was meant to be an annual celebration of life found in many countries of the world.  Where did the word “carnival” come from? Well, Hundred’s and hundreds of years ago, the followers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” (butthead laughs…)

As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their tradition of celebrating carnival.

So let’s celebrate some crazy carnie love, because like a carnival we all fit in some category and are definately some characters in HR!

Carnie HR

Carnie Technology

Going a little deeper into what Kelly wrote, Mike Kohn from the HR Intern tells you his perspective around the 1-2-3 punch of social media and relationship building in recruiting from the job seeker’s side and the employer side.

Kelly Dingee by way of Fist Full of Talent tells you to make your profile %100. Because if she wants to hire you, she has to be able to contact you!! So if you have a profile on LinkedIN, help a sourcer help me help you!

Ben Eubanks from UpStartHR tells us the facts about how 70% of employers perform social search on candidates. We may not talk about it and there may not be hard stats, but most of you are doing it in some way-shapr-or-form. So accept and admit it!

Kathy O’Reilly of the Monster Thinking blog talks about why HR pros may be hesitant to embrace social media tools and a wonderful use of the term “angina” with  “HR and Recruiting Pros: Sitting on the Social Media Sidelines?”

Carnie Talent Management

Mark Stelzner of Inflexion Advisors is reminiscing. How many of us can have so many fond memories of a place where we worked? Could we ever consider any of our workplaces as the best company we ever worked for? Maybe maybe not but a nice quote “We won because we decided winning was more fun than losing”. I agree!

There is a wealth of advice that you can look up on the internet around job offers. The following advice comes from Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady [well she is not that evil, just direct and to the point. Most people who can't handle it - deal with it ] on what to do when you are comparing two job offers. It is rare to get two offers but, just in case, be ready!

Travis Burge talks about understanding your own hiring process and using the the data to drive your hiring strategies. Really, it’s all about time and time is money!

Laura Schroeder (that’s my sister’s name!!!) from the Compensation Cafe talks about being able to get a job regardless of how well you can act or talk about Tron or LightSabers Because sometimes we have no perfect script to get a job!

B.P.Rao comes with an interesting perspective about how many designations have changed! I have to agree that the responsibilities that titles reflect and the expectation we have in gaining a title are often different then they have been traditionally.

The mysterious HRD from My Hell Is Other People, gives views on the use of third party recruiters and how we should separate the cowboys from the Indians! Meaning, let’s get back to the point of Recruiting, finding great talent instead of a recruiter acting in a B2B way.

Carnie Leadership

Jennifer V. Miller from the People Equation talks about how a Leaders roles can help increase an employees skills and maximize the results of training. This can especially be true when managers reinforce before, during, and after training.

Amy Wilson from the ever so talented TalentedApps team writes about how HR leaders and Unit leaders within the Business actually sit down together and define the differences between Talent Reviews and Succession Planning? Notice how, in this post, not once was a “seat” or a ”table” mentioned! Just people meeting together. Take that all too played out “seat at the table” anology!

Mark Vickers from i4cp writes about how leadership, true leadership is kind of fading. It’s losing the luster, thus we have gone through a Long Era of Lackluster Leadership.

Kevin Eikenberry of The Kevin Eikenberry Group eludes to what many people have been writing about in engagement lately and how encouragement is an underappreciated coaching skill.

Carnie Attitude

Kevin W. Grossman from the Glowan Consulting Group talks about how our perception of social tools are going to change from today’s executives to the next class of pros taking over the guard in the future. If you don’t know now, realize that HR and C-level jobs of the future are in the top 20 of Social Jobs. We better get a head start on being social!

Our friend Bill Boorman talks about the Social Job search and how with some annoyances we hold, we should just get over them in the social realm of search!

Melissa Prusher from The Devon Group talks about your style at work. Not management style but a different type of style.

I am sure these days all of us in Human Resources can presume what makes employees negative? From the fear of losing a job to increased responsibilities and less people to help among them. Here Susan Heathfield is asking for your opinion in a poll. Feel free to vote.

Many of us attend seminars and conferences to earn certifications, get out of the office, or learn something new. But do we ever expect a conference to change our life? Paul Smith from Welcome To The Occupation answers that question for himself!

Jason Seiden from Fail Spectacularly writes about our intentions. How those of us in the HR can build great systames, processes and programs but in the end what helps us fail or succeed are the people. Because no matter what we try to do, human nature trumps everything.

Mary Jo Asmus talks about her own resistance to change through a personal experience and how we always need to be open to learn something new, regardless of how much we think we may know. Our experience often gets in the way of our growth!

Carnie Wellness

Amit Bhagria on the Young HR Manager post about the importance of health and celebrating through world heart day. I agree with Amit when he mentions the importance of building a healthier workplace. I wish my work still had a gym. I wish more people walked up the steps instead of taking the elevator… but I still dream.

So there it is. I hope you enjoyed it. And don’t forget to subscribe to this blog or follow me on twitter!

I’m on vacation. So you will enjoy some guest posts! Today’s guest post comes from Cindy Jordan. She runs a recruiting consulting company peoplelogixconsulting.com, which assists small to medium sized businesses with the recruiting process. In this post, she discusses approaches to manage your relationship with your superior. You can follow Cindy on Twitter @cijordan.

The Story
I was speaking to a friend the other day about being effective in the workplace and she threw out the term “managing up.” I have heard so many thoughts lately on the term managing up and it’s a term that is so often misconstrued. Some people feel it means that somehow there is a role reversal and you actually get the opportunity to manage your boss. That somehow there is a magic wand you wave. That you and your boss magically trade roles for the day. Although I’m sure many people love to fantasize about that scenario, that isn’t at all the true nature of the term “managing up”.

What does ‘Managing up’ mean?
Managing up really involves the relationship you have with your boss. The easiest illustration of managing up that I can convey is a bull horn vs. a telephone. The bullhorn is the traditional form of boss/employee relationship, all the communication comes from the boss to the employee. Managing up is more like the telephone; the communication is free flowing back and forth between employee and boss.

The keys to managing up are threefold:

1. keep your boss in the loop,
2. go above and beyond, and lastly
3. own your development.

Keeping your boss informed on what’s happening doesn’t mean you need to give them an hourly log of what you are doing. Rather, you should make sure you let them know about any challenges you faced and what you did to overcome them. It is important that you make them aware of your successes. Go ahead, pat your own back, toot your own horn. When setting goals for yourself, make sure you are setting stretch goals that are line with what your boss feels is important. Nothing impresses the boss more than taking on more of a challenge. Finally, if there are skills that you need in order to succeed don’t wait for your boss to train you. Take ownership of your development, create a plan and map how you are going to obtain these skills.

By effectively managing up you will make yourself a more valuable and promotable employee. And who knows, you may end up managing your boss after all.

Guest Post Intro: Lauren Sandelin is a senior at Miami University (Ohio), where she currently serves as the PR Director for the university’s PRSSA chapter.  She will graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations.  Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn, and visit her blog. If you have any opportunities feel free to assist on that end too!

How Social Media Saved My Job Search.

I’m sure you wouldn’t be shocked to hear me say that the job-hunt hasn’t been too easy.  We’ve all been there at least once, and many of us are there right now.  You don’t need me to tell you that today’s economy isn’t exactly conducive to the whole process.

My job search began far before I was technically ready.  I was so excited for the future I had imagined in my head that I started searching last August (yep, that’s right).  I obviously had no intention of applying for any of those jobs at the time, but it’s fair to say that I was ready to get the ball rolling.  When January came, it was finally time to start applying to those jobs.

Wait, what jobs?

All the jobs I had been hoping to apply for were long gone.  Expected?  Of course…but that doesn’t mean I was okay with it.  It’d be fair to say that January was a wash, and February came around soon enough.  Sure, I found a few openings here and there – but I’m sure you wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that most listings used the dreaded, “send your resume into this black hole and chances are slim you’ll actually hear back from us” application process.  Oh yes – you know exactly what I’m talking about.

February ended soon enough and I was still without even a glimmer of hope.  So what’s a girl to do?  Well, I could sit around and mope.  You know, feel sorry for myself, throw pity parties with a whopping guest list of one, and become frustrated with the whole process.  That almost seems productive, right?  Okay…so maybe not.

It didn’t take long for me to throw that idea into the wind and take a good hard look at my approach.  There comes a point when you have to reflect on things and say, “Okay, kiddo…this isn’t working.  What’s next?”

So what was next?  I mean, wasn’t everyone using the same blind approach I was?  What other options were there?

Then I came across this little thing most refer to as “social media.”  Yeah…I know what that is.  Facebook?  Sure, I’ve had an account on there since my senior year of high school.  Whoop-dee-do.  I have a LinkedIn account, but I don’t have a clue what to do with that.  Twitter?  How in the world would telling people what I do every second of the day help me land a job?  C’mon, brain…give me some real ideas here.

It didn’t take long for me to discover the real beauty of social media.  Actually, what I really discovered was the beauty of networking.  As it turns out, social media is just another doorway to networking and connecting.  This doorway, though, opens up into a big ol’ world where (believe it or not) people are not just willing to help, but want to.  When used effectively, you’d be amazed at the results.  I’ve never been concerned about my ability to do a job and convince others that I’m capable, but it’s all a process and step one is getting noticed.  Shortly after, of course, comes the interview.  Unfortunately, getting noticed and getting that interview are always the toughest parts – but networking makes it that much easier.

There certainly isn’t a lack of posts and articles about the benefits of using social media in your job search, so I’m not setting out to explain exactly how or why.  Instead, I just want to serve as living proof that this does work.  Obviously, I’m not condoning that Twitter (or LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever your preference) serve as your only means of networking and job-hunting, but I’d highly recommend you at least add it to your arsenal.

Now hold on just a second – I’m not sitting here with a smug, accomplished grin on my face saying that this just suddenly fixed all my problems.  I still have yet to land a job and we’re now less than a month away from graduation (not that I’m keeping track or anything).  Anyone who knows me could attest to the fact that I started off my senior year bound-and-determined to have a job offer before May.

Truth be told, I’m far from any job offers at this point…but hey, at least I’m finally getting e-mails and phone calls – a definite improvement from where I was just a month ago.  I’ve already gained so much insight on not just the job search process, but also on my chosen career field.  I’ve had the chance to speak with industry professionals, HR geniuses, you name it.  That “black hole” has gotten ten times smaller and this entire process suddenly seems “doable” again.

Feeling ready to give up and call it quits?

Freshen up your approach.  If what you’re doing now isn’t getting the results you want, then what do you really have to lose by trying something else?  Get in there.  Connect with others – ask questions, seek help, don’t be afraid to admit that what you’ve been doing just isn’t working.