“I have to work with them but they drive me mad!”

We inherit our relations, we create our friends, but work colleagues, business partners and employees are often thrust upon us (even if they seemed like the ‘perfect candidate’ when you hired them).  Hannah McNamara Managing Director of HRM Coaching in London suggests some humane ways to deal with those who you would normally cross the road to avoid.

You have probably been there.

If a certain car is missing from the car-park, your heart leaps and you arrive at work with an instant feel-good emotion. If it is there, you proceed with reluctance. It is not the car that influences your demeanour. It is the car’s owner who is the typical colleague from hell.

It needn’t be that way if you follow these few simple ways for dealing with tricky types.

It is difficult to change yourself, but it is a thousand times harder to change someone else. There is an easier option. You simply change your attitude towards that individual. Begin with an understanding of why your colleague behaves the way that they do. Begin with the knowledge that, although we all inhabit the same world, we each have a unique view of it. Your view may not be inferior or better than mine, it is just different.

For a few moments, see if you can get a handle on the way that your obnoxious colleague sees their reality.

Without becoming a mentor and advisor … don’t even think of going there … see if their behaviour is rooted in pain, domestic problems, insecurity, or whatever. Don’t allow them to weep on your shoulder but listen for clues that may help your understanding. Imagine them with this negative baggage in a black bin-liner that they drag around with them and that you choose to ignore.

If your colleague is a bully, then simply stand up to them by quietly and calmly telling them that you find their behaviour hurtful because….

That word ‘because’ is crucial as most individuals will accept reasons, even if they are too thick to appreciate the harm of their actions. If this approach fails, then promise that you will pursue the disciplinary options that are open to you.

Don’t make idle threats.

Make that promise and keep it! If someone threatens you, create a quick mental picture of them sitting on a toilet. You will ‘see’ them at their most vulnerable and their threats as the powerless. A bully is just a control freak with a self-confidence problem. Use a similar approach to ward off unwelcome sexual advances. Light-hearted flirting can be fun as long as you are in control. Humour is often a great way of letting someone know that they are getting towards your no-go limits. If that doesn’t work, then a verbal warning shot, including the word ‘harassment’ will probably make the office tart [of either gender] run for cover and desist. If flirtation progresses to bodily contact, crude language or invitations to intimacy, then you must act at once, using all the company procedures at your command.

So your colleague is lazy and leaves you the lion’s share of the work?

As far as you can, do your fair share and then stop. Explain what you are doing and why. Workplace politics are a minefield for the unwary. Do not enter the minefield. Let the politicians play their games but quietly ignore the gossip or manoeuvring as you do your own thing in your own way. Never allow a gossip to involve you in their scurrilous rumours.

Stay away from the washrooms or water cooler when the politician or gossip is there.

Beware of those who proudly proclaim, “I am not a gossip but …’ All of these people are in control of their behaviour and, in some way, seek to control you. You will find it useful to learn and develop your rapport building skills which will allow you to co-exist in harmony without becoming bosom buddies.

Then there are the unfortunate people who have a personal freshness, flatulence, or inappropriate scratching problem.

Here, I am afraid, you must just learn to put up with them until they seek appropriate professional advice. On the topic of professional advice, when you would like to learn more about rapport, about changing your attitude or, dealing with deep-rooted colleague problems, then have a chat with a coach who, I promise, will not exhibit any adverse behavioural tendencies.

To find a coach, call me, Hannah McNamara on 020 7939 9910 (+44 20 7939 9910)

Online Career Coaching goes live!

We are pleased to announce that our online career coaching course ‘Land That Job!’ went live today.

Using cutting-edge software, we are now able to offer an online version of our proven career coaching programme which is:

• Flexible - you login wherever and whenever suits you (at home, on the move or even on holiday!)
• Private - everything’s done through the secure, online system which means no one needs to know you’re working with a coach
• Affordable – career coaching is now available at a fraction of what you would pay for ‘live’ sessions

‘Land That Job!’ helps you to highlight your unique skills and experience, understand your personal brand and shine in interviews. It shows you what you need to include on your CV, how to tackle the toughest interview questions and how to use ‘insiders’ secret methods to find out about unadvertised vacancies.

You have the option of working with support from our online career mentors who will give you feedback and guidance on your search for a job and succeeding in interviews. These are all coaches and mentors who are experienced in helping people change roles or return to work after a break.

We are currently looking for beta-testers to go through the programme at a much reduced rate in exchange for feedback and testimonials, so if you or someone you know is looking to change jobs soon, please spread the word!

Find out more by clicking here

Career Coaching: Naked on the Career Ladder

It may sound uncomfortable, even slightly immoral and not something that you would do every day. Even so, to get into a job that you enjoy, you need to strip back the layers of other peoples’ expectations and get down to the basics of what makes you tick – with no hiding place, no blame and no excuses.

It has been said that, when you do the work that you enjoy, it is like being paid for having fun. Even if you deliberately chose your current job, it is quite possible that it has changed out of all recognition since then. You too will have changed your goals, interests and opinions as you matured.

So where are you now? And what can you do about it? If you could do absolutely anything to earn your living, what would it be? These are the types of question that your career coach will ask you, quite early on in your relationship.

Hannah McNamara of HRM Coaching Ltd says, ‘Career coaching can be done face-to-face or by telephone. Some clients come to us a result of redundancy and then realise that this apparent bad news was the best thing that ever happened to them. We have clients who are ready to escape the familiar rat race of office politics to do their own thing and develop their leisure interests and passions into their own business. Even a jet-set lifestyle that is the envy of many can begin to pall after the umpteenth long haul flight, the hundredth identical hotel room and the repeated promises to your significant other as you attempt to sustain a relationship’.

It is because of this very diversity of career situations that HRM was established with a network of trained and qualified professional coaches, each personally selected after rigorous screening, to ensure a perfect match between each client and their coach.

HRM Coaching offers you a free introductory discussion by telephone where your questions can be answered and your career needs assessed. Then, you will be offered a shortlist of coaches who are ready and willing to move you forward just as soon as you are ready.

Hannah McNamara Managing Director of HRM Coaching says, ‘It’s not our job to tell you what to do. In a series of simple questioning procedures we can ascertain your true goals, ambitions, interests and motivations.  You work with your coach to define actions that will move you ever closer to the perfect occupation. We are here to help you open up some amazing possibilities and to convert them into your reality’.

The first step is yours, the time is now and yes, you can keep your clothes on!

Call our friendly team now on 020 7939 9910 (+44 20 7939 9910) to arrange a time for a complimentary 20 minute discussion on how coaching works.

How to wreck your reputation through social networking

Looking around for the your next role may involve approaching contacts via social networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Indeed any prospective employer would be wise to check out your profile before making an offer – would what they find out about you impress them or send them running for cover? So what can you do to minimise your chances of wrecking your reputation and manage your personal brand? London Career Coach Hannah McNamara of HRM Coaching Ltd explains.

Did you know that only around 15-20% of job vacancies are ever advertised to the public?

That means over 80% of candidates find their job through methods other than responding to adverts in their trade or professional magazines. But how? Well in addition to recruitment agencies and headhunters, many people find their new position through networking. Through meeting people online and offline, getting to know them and finding out when they are hiring.

However – and this is a big warning to you! – there are also a number of people who lose out on landing a job BECAUSE of the networking they have done. How?

Because they haven’t taken the necessary steps to protect their personal brand – in particular their online identity. It’s all too easy to ‘Google’ someone these days and if you use the Google Images feature, you can even find pictures of them within a couple of seconds. When you’ve finished reading this, try Googling yourself and see what comes up.

I’m willing to bet that if you’re on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or Bebo, your profile came up (it may have been hidden a few pages into the search results). Even if the person viewing your profile isn’t a member or isn’t signed in, they’ll probably have seen your profile picture. Anyone starting to sweat at this point?

Just taking Facebook as an example, your public profile page appears on Google and in many cases displays a selection of your friends. Hmm…even if your profile pic is perfectly presentable, what about the photos of your friends? Would they impress the HR Director who is looking at your CV right now?

Ok, so if you’ve now started to think about what you can do on a practical level to undo any damage to your reputation, here are some things you can do right now. The tips are about profiles on Facebook, but the principles apply to all social networking sites.

• Change your profile name so that it doesn’t include your full name as it appears on CVs – abbreviate your name or use a nickname. Your real friends will know who you are.
• If you do want prospective employers to find you or you’re using the site for professional networking, seriously think about having TWO profiles, one for friends and one for professional contacts.
• Check your privacy settings and put them up to the highest level. If your friends have a habit of tagging photos of you, go onto the page where the photo appears and click ‘Remove Tag’. Then go to your Privacy settings and alter the settings relating to who can view your pictures and videos. I recommend you set them at maximum privacy if you can bear to.
• Look very carefully at what comments and pictures other people have posted on your profile. If they aren’t saying the right things about you, delete them and make sure that you check regularly to see that those amusing but crude pictures and YouTube videos don’t keep coming back to haunt you!
• Now go to your Applications. If you’ve added applications that won’t impress people, remove them straight away. Employers are rarely interested to know which person from Friends you are most like.
• Now to your Groups. Even if you’ve got your privacy settings up to the max, the instant you join a Group, you’re appearing on the online map. The Groups you join say a lot about you and in many cases mean that your full profile is visible to any other members of that Group. If you in a moment of madness joined the ‘Why I hate my boss’ group or ‘interesting places I’ve had sex at work’, it’s probably time to leave that group.
• Now to your Friends list. Do you really have 347 friends who you see on a regular basis? You’re probably giving every one of them full access to your profle. Just because you’ve decided that photos of you will only be visible to your friends, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t going to show them to anyone else. Especially if you’ve accepted a Friends request from a colleague or ex-colleague. If you really don’t want certain people to see what’s in your profile, you can either adjust your Privacy settings to restrict what people can see or consider removing them from your friends list.
• If you communicate with your friends via the Wall or SuperWall features, remember that you are having a very public conversation. If you post something like “I was so drunk last night I can’t remember what I did” on a friend’s wall, you have absolutely NO control over who is going to see it. Use the private message boards or old-fashioned e-mail for personal communications.
• Finally, if all else fails, close your account and start again.

Now, before you rush off to update your profiles to make them squeaky clean, if employers or colleagues are going to check you out online, you still need to come across as you. If you’re a fun-loving person who only wants to work in companies that have a sense of humour and have some energy about them, that’s what they are going to be looking for on your profile. If you only include air-brushed professional studio photos as profile pics and have no applications at all on your profile, there’s a danger that you’ll come across as a bit dull or not their kind of person. So there’s a balance. Be yourself, but within reason.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

How to cope with impending redundancy

London Career Coach Hannah McNamara offers some tips if you are facing redundancy.

The British economy isn’t exactly at its strongest level at the moment, which is why so many workers are starting to worry about the prospect of a recession and what that would mean for their job security. Redundancy is something that many people will sadly have to go through in their lives, but with the appropriate career planning you can come through the experience with a better regard for your career and your skills.

If you are facing redundancy this is the best time to make use of every piece of quality career advice you can. Career coaching can make all the difference at a time when your emotions are likely to be running high; you may have been in your job for many years and if this is the case you would be forgiven for feeling as if there is no future for you in the current job market.

But many people end up looking back and realising that their redundancy was a good thing in the long run. That’s not to say that it wasn’t stressful or upsetting at the time, but there is no doubt that if you get the right help and support when you need it you will be able to face your future with more knowledge and confidence.

It’s also a good time to think about whether you want to stay in the same career and progress to a different company, or if you would prefer to opt for a complete career change. Many people find career coaching can help them to assess the possibilities and make an informed decision on whether their current skills could be put to better use elsewhere.

If you do decide to opt for a career change you may find you need to obtain some fresh qualifications or training that will give you a better chance of getting the job you want. Proper career planning can also identify other possibilities such as self employment – perhaps even using the years of experience you have already gained in the job you are about to leave. Many people use some of their redundancy money to set up a business which enables them to be true to themselves as well as bring in an income which comes from creating something that is truly theirs.

Whatever you decide to do, it is vital that you get the help and advice you need as soon as you know that redundancy is on the cards. If you can do this you will be able to move forwards with much more confidence.

The website of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development publishes a quarterly review of the labour market, which gives details of the outlook for redundancy among other factors, and it can be accessed at their website at http://www.cipd.co.uk.

© Copyright Hannah McNamara 2008

Hannah McNamara is a Career Coach with a background in Marketing, based in London. She has been providing Career Coaching in London for almost 4 years and has a client base made up of private individuals, large organisations and SME businesses.

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