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Rather than being one dimensional–either a terror or a softie–it is advantageous to have a tough streak that can be applied when necessary. This requires being able to read situations correctly, including one’s own strengths and weaknesses, the nature of the organization, and the demands of the problem or opportunity at hand.

Trump or Buffett?

Looking at role models among successful people can provide conflicting answers to the question of whether nice employees finish last. Donald Trump, who is arguably the world’s most high-profile boss, seems to pride himself on exhibiting boorish behavior. This is the animal-kingdom approach to leadership, where being a leader means being able to periodically assert your dominance over the rest of the pack, which in turn keeps the pack in line and amplifies the leader’s power.

However, before anyone assumes this is the sole blueprint for success, they should consider another example. Not the world’s most high-profile boss, but simply the world’s richest man: Warren Buffett. Since money is the business world’s means of keeping score, Buffett’s fortune, earned at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway, would put him at the top of the heap. In contrast to Trump, Buffett is known for his folksy charm, proving that there is more than one path to success.

What to Consider Before Playing Hardball

As for which role model today’s employees should follow, the answer might be to draw from both. Certainly, being easygoing and accommodating all the time would probably result in a person being overlooked and bypassed for opportunities, but the Attila-the-Hun act can lead to spectacular career flameouts. To help determine the right approach, here are five questions an employee should think about before deciding to play hardball.

What is the culture of the organization?

The tough-guy (or gal) act will play better in some companies than others. For example Wall Street firms are notorious for audacious displays of power by executives. Move to the West Coast though and many Internet firms prefer a more supportive and collaborative approach. In between, the range is as wide culturally as it is geographically, and it is important for employees to understand the ethos of their own firms. It is important to know whether one is expected to run with the bulls or to avoid being a bull in a china shop.

As a general rule, keep in mind that a Harvard Business School survey found that people would rather work with a lovable fool than a competent jerk. Whether this is right or wrong is immaterial–it’s simply the way people are. The competent jerk’s skills may be devalued just because other employees don’t want input or involvement from someone they can’t stand.

Who are the other players?

A company may be a bare-knuckles environment, but it’s always wise to check out the strength of the competition before starting a fight. A corporate culture that embraces open competition is likely to attract a wide field of people willing to play tough. Especially when dealing with more experienced people it is important that an employee choose carefully when and how to take them on. Here’s where a little diplomacy can be a nice complement to more confrontational attributes, because building alliances might be the only way to get around more entrenched employees.

Does the employee have indispensable skills?

Being assertive works very well for employees who have indispensable skills. Someone who is hard to replace can afford to be a little more demanding. On the other hand, an employee who does not add value or is easily replaced can ill afford to make waves. In other words, someone should not risk becoming a problem employee if the easiest solution to that problem is to find a replacement.

What is the employee’s true nature?

Not everyone is cut out to be a type “A” personality. People who aren’t really cutthroat by nature tend to fail when they try to act that way, and they make themselves miserable in the process. People who do best at the take-no-prisoners approach to business are those who instinctively think of life as a personal competition that they are driven to win. This certainly does not mean more mild-mannered sorts can’t be successful. It’s just that the Trumps of the world have to act like the Trumps, and the Buffetts have to act like the Buffetts. Any attempt to act otherwise will soon wear thin.

What are the employee’s career goals?

Long-term career goals also make a difference in how a person should act in the workplace. Someone who has the CEO’s office in mind needs to make an impression early and often. This doesn’t necessarily mean stepping on toes, but chances are a race to the top slot will entail demonstrating dominance over other competitors somewhere along the line. On the other hand, most people have no interest in the pressures and commitment the top slot entails. For employees who want purely to find a comfortable niche within an organization, making waves is the wrong way to go.

The Winning Formula

For those keeping score–and in the corporate world, just about everybody is–Warren Buffett is currently considered the world’s richest man, while Donald Trump failed to crack the top 100. Still, Trump’s ruthless approach has made him a billionaire in his own right, proving that there is more than one path to a successful career.

For most people, the winning formula might be to blend a little of both approaches. It’s good to show ambition, willingness to make tough decisions, and the ability to stand one’s ground when necessary. At the same time, wrapping that iron fist in a velvet glove of good manners and teamwork will make an employee more likely to be sought out for opportunities.

Kelli Smith is the senior editor for http://www.Edu411.org Edu411 is a career education directory for finding colleges and universities, training schools, and technical institutes.

When you go to a job interview, the odds are against you. A typical job opening will attract dozens of well-qualified applicants; only one can be hired. So most people do not receive the desired phone call extending an offer.

What DO they receive? Usually, nothing. Some companies will send a letter or e-mail notifying candidates that a selection has been made and “thank you for interviewing with us.” Most companies won’t even do that, and the candidates will have to contact THEM to find out the status of the position.

Finding out you didn’t get the job can be frustrating, demoralizing and heartbreaking. Not knowing WHY you didn’t get the job can make you feel even worse-especially if you thought you did well at the interview.

So ask for job interview feedback. If you find out what went well and what went wrong, you can make adjustments that will help you do better-and increase your chances of getting a job offer-at your next interview.

But there’s a right way-and a wrong way-to do this.

How to Ask for Job Interview Feedback

If you receive a phone call notifying you that you were not selected, ask for feedback during that call. If you receive an e-mail or letter, ask for feedback within 24 hours (reply via e-mail or call).

But do NOT ask the interviewer why you were not selected. I know this is what you’ll want to ask, but don’t. Instead, word your request in such a way that the interviewer knows you are not questioning his or her decision, but would appreciate some constructive feedback.

Ask how you can improve, what your weak areas were, or if he/she has any specific interviewing advice for you. For example: “I have another interview coming up and I’d like to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes I made when I interviewed with you. Could you give me some advice on how I might improve my interview performance?”

People do NOT like to have their decisions questioned. People DO like to give advice. Usually.

Why Most Interviewers Will Not Give Helpful Feedback

As I said, most people do like to give advice. And unless you were arrogant, disrespectful or unprofessional during the interview, most interviewers will genuinely want to help you do better next time.

But that doesn’t mean they will actually give you helpful feedback. Many interviewers will not. Here are three reasons why…

1. The number-one reason? Fear of being hit with a lawsuit.

You’d think that as long as the interviewer doesn’t admit to making the hiring decision based on race, age, religion, sex, or any of the other protected categories, this wouldn’t be a concern. But it’s rarely that straightforward.

Suppose the interviewer told a female Asian candidate-truthfully-that she was not selected because she didn’t have enough public speaking experience. Now imagine it’s a complicated position, and after continuing to search unsuccessfully for more than nine months for the ideal person with the perfect combination of skills, the interviewer finally lowers his standards and, long after conversations with the original candidates are forgotten, ends up hiring a white male who has all of the qualifications except one: public speaking experience. The rejected Asian candidate may perceive that she was discriminated against, even though she was not, and file a lawsuit.

It doesn’t matter whether lawsuits are justified or not-they cost money to defend against and can damage a company’s reputation, so all companies are desperate to avoid them.

In today’s world where so many people are willing and eager to hire a lawyer and scream “I was treated unfairly!” you can understand why companies and interviewers choose to give feedback that is honest and generic (”We selected someone whose qualifications more closely matched what we were looking for.”)-but not specific enough to be helpful to you… or potentially harmful to them.

2. Another reason some don’t offer feedback is because they don’t want to get into unpleasant conversations with people who cannot accept the fact that they were not the best person for the job. Those people are more interested in debating the decision than in learning how to do better at a future interview. Here’s a typical exchange:

Interviewer: “You had many of the qualifications we were looking for, but we needed someone with stronger communication skills.”

Non-selected candidate: “But I’m a super communicator! Ask anyone! I even won a debate in high school! I don’t see how anyone else can be better at communicating than me! I think you’ve made a big mistake.”

Accept this: You will not succeed in changing the interviewer’s decision. That decision is based on your resume and what they learned about you during the interview. If you didn’t show the skills, personality, or other characteristics they want during the interview, that’s why you were not hired. It is natural to want to correct a wrong impression about you, but doing so, and trying to convince them that they made a mistake, is pointless.

I’m not saying hiring mistakes never happen. But expecting an interviewer to reconsider you after your interview is over and you’ve received feedback on why you weren’t selected is like expecting to be able to take a test over again after you’ve been graded and given the correct answers! It just doesn’t work that way.

3. Last but not least, some interviewers don’t want to give feedback because they honestly don’t know what to tell you. Have you ever met someone and immediately decided you didn’t like him or her, but weren’t sure why? It’s often the same in a job interview. It could be something about your personality, the way you shook hands, maybe even the perfume you wore that created an unflattering impression, almost subliminally, in the interviewer’s mind. Or maybe the interviewer does know what she didn’t like about you, but doesn’t want to hurt your feelings by mentioning it (bad breath, for example).

Benefit From What You Learn

There are many other reasons interviewers may not give you helpful feedback. But it never hurts to ask (in the right way).

If you DO receive helpful feedback, be thankful because it truly is quite rare.

Don’t take offense or become argumentative if you don’t agree with the interviewer’s assessment of you. After all, it’s just that person’s opinion. Besides, it makes more sense to respect the opinion of a person who works for that company, who knows the needs of the job, and who knows better than you whether or not you’re likely to be a good fit for the organization and the job.

The key is to listen carefully to the feedback the interviewer gives you. If something doesn’t make sense, ask for clarification or a specific example, but don’t get defensive.

Remember to thank the interviewer for his/her time and comments.

Once you have the feedback, be sure to work on whatever it was that held you back. If you were told you seemed disinterested, for example, you know that next time you’ll need to show more enthusiasm. Whatever the reasons given, whether true weaknesses or inaccurate perceptions based on your failure to successfully communicate your strengths, use that vital information to become better prepared for your next job interview, and get the job!

Bonnie Lowe is author of the popular Job Interview Success System and free information-packed ezine, “Career-Life Times.” Find those and other powerful career-building resources and tips at her website: http://www.Best-Interview-Strategies.com

Turning a layoff into a career catalyst

Nine months into her first job, Mary Wisniewski returned from a business trip to Switzerland in April — and was laid off.

“It feels like I dreamed it up,” she says. “I could understand being fired if I messed up, but I never would have thought I’d get laid off.”

As employers look to shed workers in a struggling economy, Wisniewski and other recent college graduates are finding their jobs are over just as they have begun.

Job counselors say an early layoff need not be career damaging. They encourage recent graduates not to take layoffs personally, to deal with the issue honestly and to quickly begin looking for another job.

Related links

* Hanah Cho: 10 workplace trends of the future

“Getting let go is never a good thing, but it’s not nearly the black mark on your resume it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago,” says Brad Karsh, president and founder of JobBound, which helps college students and recent graduates land their first jobs. “It happens to the best of us, and it’s beyond your control.”

Karsh says those who have been laid off should reassess their situation and try to use the layoff as a catalyst for finding a more suitable job. He recommends being honest when interviewing for subsequent jobs, adding that most employers will understand, as long as they are told the truth. “That early in your career, it couldn’t have been much of your fault,” Karsh says.

Marcia Harris, director of University Career Services at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, urges those laid off to obtain a letter of recommendation before leaving the company, explaining what happened and why, indicating the employee wasn’t at fault.

Harris says recent graduates may have to take temporary, freelance or part-time positions to pay the bills while they seek another full-time job. Most won’t have big savings cushions, and many will still be repaying student loans or the costs of furnishing an apartment.

Recent graduates who find themselves laid off should check with their loan providers; many can help work out a deferral of or reduction in payment during times of distress.

Robert Graber, chief executive of Wallstjobs.com, a financial-services recruiting source, says recent graduates who landed their first job through campus recruiting will have to learn how to job hunt. “They may have to be more proactive,” he says.

Graber encourages those in the financial sector to consider companies beyond the brand names, such as smaller boutique firms and hedge funds, including those in smaller cities.

He recommends not taking the summer off, noting that looking for a job can be a full-time endeavor itself. Graber says job-seekers should do as much networking as possible, through talking with friends and associates, attending events, and participating in alumni clubs and nonprofit groups. Ms. Harris says many college career centers offer services to alumni free of charge or for a small fee.

Wisniewski, a Michigan native who graduated from Pepperdine University last year and moved to New York for a job as an editor at a jewelry-industry magazine, has found it tough to move on in a sluggish economy. She has interviewed with a handful of companies, including one in Kentucky that would require her to move again. “I don’t want to leave New York, but I might have to,” she says.

She says she worries because her short job tenure often comes up during interviews. “I don’t want it to be a huge red flag,” she says. She has considered omitting the nine-month stint from her resume, but is concerned that it will make her seem too inexperienced.

Wisniewski says that she has been advised that her layoff shouldn’t be a problem once she explains it, as many hiring managers expect to see these situations in a poor economy. “Losing your job isn’t the end of the world of course, but it’s still like getting a black eye,” she says.

Professionals urge people who have been laid off not to lose perspective, and to try to grow from the experience. That was the case for Gerry Wilson, who says getting laid off turned out to be a good thing.

Wilson graduated from Princeton in 2000 and took a job with MicroStrategy Inc., an Internet software company. After two months training at company headquarters in Virginia, he headed to New York to begin work. The first day, he was told that his consultant position was being eliminated.

Wilson parlayed his expertise with MicroStrategy’s software into another consulting position, making nearly double what his salary would have been. He later started consulting on his own and saved enough money to attend business school. There, he developed a plan for his own business, yoonew inc., an online exchange that lets sports fans bet on a shot at Super Bowl or World Series tickets, long before the event. He raised funding from angel investors and now runs yoonew.

“All I have done has been because I was laid off on my first day,” he says.

Exploring A New Career While On ‘Vacation’

Ever fantasize about what it might be like to go into acting, run your own coffee shop become a chocolatier or work in the wine industry? Interested in finding a way to test drive a new career without losing a paycheck or risking the mortgage payment?

Missy Grohne did just that. She was working as a consultant in a LASIK eye surgery clinic, but she felt as though her real calling was in entertainment or acting. About 18 months ago, she saw a tiny advertisement about VocationVacations, a business that offers clients one- to three-day immersions with mentors in various careers and businesses. She discovered there was an opportunity to work with Kim Crow, a voice-over professional in Florida.

Grohne, who lives in New York City, was supposed to spend two days with Crow but ended up spending three.

“It was hands-on from the minute I arrived. She put me right through the paces and made me do it,” Grohne said. Crow also gave her lots of encouragement.

“To have someone so established and so renowned in Florida,” Grohne said. “She could have said no, but she said yes, yes.”

Grohne returned to New York with a voice-over demo tape and entered a professional voice-over school where she spent eight weeks perfecting her technique. Now she has her own burgeoning voice-over business. She hasn’t quit her job at the eye clinic yet, but she expects she’ll be able to do so soon.

“It cost me about $1,200,” Grohne said. “It’s probably the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. … This was exactly what I needed the kick in the butt. It got me motivated.”

Brian Kurth came up with the VocationVacations concept in 1999 when he was sitting in traffic on Chicago’s Kennedy Expressway during his long daily commute to his job in product management for a regional phone company. He started daydreaming about what he’d rather do in life make wine, guide tours, train dogs. He thought about how great it would be if there were a way to test an occupation for a few days.

“There were internships for 20-year-olds and there were volunteer vacations go off and work with sea turtles but not something that would allow me to take a few days and work with a winemaker or with a dog trainer.”

Eventually he left the phone company job and got a job with a dot com. When a pink slip arrived in late 2001, he went on a road trip. Along the way, he asked the people he met if they would be interested in a company that offered short internships for grown-ups contemplating career changes. He almost always received a positive response.

By the end of his journey, he decided to take a job in the wine industry and to move to Portland, Ore., but the concept for VocationVacations was percolating. He worked to develop the business as a hobby and then officially launched it in 2004.

Although there have been “vocationers” from Connecticut, none was available for an interview. However, Duncan Goodall, the owner of Koffee on Audubon in New Haven, is one of several Connecticut-based mentors for VocationVacations.

Goodall had worked for a market research consulting business but quit his high-paying position because he didn’t like the lifestyle and wanted more time with his family.

“Now I’m doing something I enjoy and it has meaning for me,” Goodall said of his coffeehouse business. “Doing something like this is very gratifying for me.”

He also enjoys the opportunity to share his knowledge with VacationVocation customers, to help others avoid the pitfalls he encountered in the business.

In his mentoring, he covers everything from understanding the market, to whether to buy a pre-existing coffeehouse or start a new one, to the ins and outs of buying or leasing equipment to how to make a good cup of coffee and ensure that employees do the same.

Kurth said that he makes an effort to find mentors, who like Goodall, know what they do, do it well and are born teachers. The pay for mentors, Kurth said, is a “relatively small honorarium.”

Kurth declined to discuss how many people have taken VocationVacations, but he said the numbers are rising, especially in what he calls the “disgruntled triangle” the region between Chicago, Boston and Washington, D.C.

“This is where the bulk of our customers come from,” Kurth said. “They are not fulfilled in their current careers. They are fed up with commutes, yearning for something different.”

Other hots spots for job dissatisfaction include all of California and Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth. Very often, his clients work in information technology, corporate litigation, financial services or insurance. Sometimes they are doctors or nurses who enjoy helping people but are tired of the medical bureaucracy and insurance demands.

“We also get people from middle America seeking to do something different and something new,” he said.

The company now offers 150 types of vocation with more than 300 mentors across the country. The most popular vocations are those in hospitality (such as bed and breakfasts, hotels, inns and concierges); food preparation (bakery, catering and coffeehouse); entertainment (acting, voice-overs and television production); design (fashion and interior design); sports (sports announcing and baseball team general manager); and various jobs working with animals.

Other possibilities for vocationers include spending time with an alpaca rancher, a chocolatier and pastry chef, or a comedian or a film score composer. The cost ranges from a one-day brewmaster experience at $549 to a two-day Broadway producer/director VocationVacation at $2,999. Most of the vacations are two days and range between $949 and $1,199.

Kurth, whose recently released book is “Test Drive Your Dream Job A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding and Creating the Work You Love,” said that about 75 percent of the “vocationers” are making the trip as part of a career exploration effort and that most (about 80 percent) are baby boomers or Generation Xers. About 10 percent are in their late teens or 20s and using the experience to get an up-close look at a possible career. Another 10 percent are retirees.

Len Dest of Southampton, N.Y., was one of those who was retiring from a career in marketing and promotion with the aerospace industry when he began to think about what else he might do. He had always had an avocation for wine, so his partner purchased him a VocationVacation with a winemaker for his birthday.

What he discovered were the many different aspects of the winemaking business that he hadn’t before understood. “I didn’t think at my age that I could become a true winemaker,” said Dest, but he discovered that he could work in the wine industry by applying his skills in marketing and promotion.

He’s now executive director of a nonprofit organization that promotes the wines of Long Island. “Tomorrow, I’m going to a wine conference,” said Dest, “to explain to people why we believe Long Island merlot wine is a world-class product.”

For more information, visit the VocationVacations website at www.vocationvacations.com.

Finding a New Job After 50

Hard work and being a team player may not be the qualities that get you your next job, according to Jack Heyden, a partner at the aptly named Gray Hair Management, a networking firm for older workers. The key to getting a new job after middle age is to explain how your past job performance improved the bottom line of the company, says Heyden, who was president of a banking association for 13 years until he was laid off in 1999 as part of a merger at age 53. He is the coauthor of Winning the Job Race: Pathways Through Transition with his equally gray-haired partner, Scott Kane. I called Heyden at his Deerfield, Ill., office to ask him what advice he has for older workers who find themselves suddenly jobless in a slow economy. Excerpts:

If you find yourself unexpectedly laid off after age 50, what should you do? You have to take a quick step back and evaluate yourself in terms of professional strengths and weaknesses as a person. Articulate your value by putting together the paperwork necessary to go out and get a joba resume. Most people, they don’t do a very good job of articulating their value. In order to do that, you have to look back at the jobs you’ve had and figure out what you did that added value to the business you worked for. Too often people [give] their job description rather than the end results they were able to deliver.

If you suspect that there might be layoffs at your company, what are some things you can do to be ready, just in case? If you start getting concerned about layoffs, figure out what kind of value you have been bringing to the company you currently work for. Most people sit down and tell me about the last couple of performance reviews. Figure out how you measure the actual value that you are bringing to the person who signs your check. Hard work, being a team player is not going to get you your next job. The only reason you are going to get your next job is most likely that you convince someone that you are the solution to the problem that the hiring manager is facing. Find out what value did the company get out of your work. Did it enable them to reduce customer complaints, respond to customers faster, close cases faster? Can you say I got a 12-month project done in nine months and under budget? It’s hard to find those things out after you are laid off.

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Your career change resume is a very specific tool, quite unlike a ‘normal’ resume so you must approach it’s creation differently.

Here are some tips to make sure that your career change resume is up to the job of getting you to interview.

Now, because the aim of this document is very different from that of a normal chronological resume, in other words the aim is to help you move into a different career, then the recent career history becomes less important than the skills you developed.

These skills must be presented in a way that supports your career objective, so starting at the top:

Under your name, address and contact details you MUST add a targeted, job-specific career objective statement. This is a clear statement of intent, so spell it out by saying exactly what job you are pursuing. This way there is no confusion about what you want to do from the start of the resume.

Next on your career change resume it is best to add a bulleted skills section. This is a short list that helps hiring managers quickly see that you have the requisite skills for the job. Only include those skills that are directly relevant to the new job and leave out any that you may have but are unrelated to your new objective.
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If you have recently lost your job, you may be at a loss of where to start looking for employment again and how to apply for jobs. Recruitment Agencies are a great place to start.

Recruitment agencies can take the fear and effort out of job hunting. Good agencies match job seekers with employers but more importantly, they match the skills and experience of job seekers to the requirements of employers. They may also offer extra services like:-

- help finding training to update your skills.
- advice on how to prepare a CV and how to write a cover letter.
- help brushing up your interview techniques - some recruitment agencies will give you mock interviews.

Keep in touch with your recruitment agency to check on progress.

As well as registering with some of the more respectable agencies, you will also want to look through the job sections of newspapers for jobs to apply for. But how do you actually go about applying for a job this way? Her are some tips:-

- Don’t waste your time or an employer’s time by applying to a job that is outside of your skill level.

- Telephone and ask for more details about the job if the advert is short or vague. Doing this will help you to make your CV and letter more relevant to the job.
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