Lessons from the Corner Office
Career boosting tactics from a Chief HR Officer

June 22, 2020

Welcome to the Corner Office

Welcome to week 26 of this amazing year. 2020 has certainly held with it some amazing change and in that change opportunities abound. This week is a great place to look at your progress for the year and make plans for how you are going to close the gaps on your career goals. If you still don't have your career goals, please keep reading and join us in the Elite Mentoring Club to get access to all my tools and trainings.

This week is an exciting issue for me. Today is the day that my wife Nicole and I married and I like to use it as a chance to reinforce all my planning. In this issue we are going to build on last weeks time organization assignment and setup the work we will do later this year, talk about an interview question that came up in a coaching session last week, look at a job posting and a recruiter profile!

So many exciting things but first a little housekeeping. If you are subscribed to this newsletter, thank you. Please take a minute after reading this and pass it on to anyone who you think would benefit from this coaching and these tips. If you received this from a friend, welcome to our club and please take a moment to subscribe at: http://www.torigian.com/freenewsletter so you wont miss out on any future issues.

I am looking forward to our journey together and can't wait to see the amazing things you are able to achieve.

Eric Torigian
Founder, Lessons from the Corner Office
Career advice from a Chief HR Officer

ABOUT LESSONS FROM THE CORNER OFFICE

I’m an accomplished, driven, strategic, global HR Executive and Chief People Officer recognized as a highly effective business leader. I have 20+ years of global experience driving organizational performance through strategic HR leadership and counsel.

My driving passion as a coach is to help individuals leverage their strengths and empower them to live their best possible life!

I love a challenge and am always willing to roll up my sleeves to get the job done!

Time Management Tip of the Week

Last week, I ask everyone to use the time gap tool to map out where you are spending your time. By know you should have 4 or 5 days worth of data. I want you to take a blank Time Gap Analysis sheet (you can download them from the membership club) and graph out each data point. Are you starting to see any patterns? These patterns will help us to focus our planning to make sure that you are working in your sweet spots but for now we need to press on. As our statistical friends say, our n is still pretty small.

For the remainder of the month, keep tracking your daily time and which zone you worked in. Remember the quadrants are:

I - High personal enjoyment, High value to others: Sweet spot;
II - High enjoyment, low value to others: Hobby
III - Low enjoyment, low value to others: Time wasters
IV - Low enjoyment, high value to others: Dues

I have an app coming soon which will help with this exercise and help you to make this part of who you are but for now just keep capturing the data manually.

Interview Tip of the Week

Do you have any questions for me?

This is the classical trap question that almost every person who interviews uses. They ask it with good intentions and really want to help the candidate by answering questions. You need to be careful here. Your questions and more importantly lack of thoughtful questions can signal trouble and undo value you added during the interview.

But as a member of the Elite Mentoring Club, you are better prepared than that! Think about questions that show you are really thinking about the role and how you will add value:

What are the KPI's you will use to measure me?
What is the biggest challenge today in the role?
What is the number one thing this role does to make your life easier?

You can also use this to understand more about the team and connect with the interviewer:

Why did you join and/or more importantly why do you stay here?
What is the culture like?
What is your experience like?

For more tips and to practice these, remember the value of a mock interview session. You get to live role play these types of questions and more, with real feedback from a HR professional. Reach out today and setup your one hour session: eric@torigian.com

Feature Job of the Week

I chose this job to feature this week because I believe that all HR leaders need good operations experience. This is a role leading HR for a manufacturing facility and it will do a couple of things for you.

First, you are going to get real world/front line HR experience. Forget any hypotheticals, you will be tested daily and it will be an amazing experience; Second, you will be part of a leadership team. Understanding how that dynamic works and getting real world experience is irreplaceable. And, Finally, you will see the impact of your efforts like no other role. Plant roles provide you with immediate feedback but in my experience are the most rewarding roles.

My readers already know the value of operations experience. Are you on track to get that experience? This is a great level to get this experience and it will place you well ahead of your competition when you are interviewing for senior HR leadership roles.

Please reach out to me to help. We can use the Career Gap Planner to build a strategic plan and go attack these and other opportunities

Recruiter of the Week

I have know Austin since he moved into his role with the Lucas Group HR practice in Denver. He is very well connected and a great person to have on your network. I recommend reaching out to him (with your elevator speech ready!) and connecting.

Lessons from the Corner Office Career boosting tactics from a Chief HR Officer