How to Get Hired by the Best

This month's issue of Fortune Magazine features its annual "The 100 Best Companies to Work For."

Google wins. OK, that kills the suspense.

The magazine also offers tips on how to get hired by one of the 100 best.

A couple of my favorites are :

* "Do creative research ... A Google search won't do it. Says Jay Jones, recruiting manager at Alcon Laboratories, 'Detailed research, including talking to our customers, is so rare it will almost guarantee you get hired.'"

* "If at first you don't succeed, don't give up. Almost every Best Company keeps track of what FedEx calls 'silver medalists' -- people who barely missed getting hired -- and alerts them to new openings ... "

Make More of Your Money Online

Newspapers have been telling usthat online revenues are growing, but still amount to just 5 to 10 percent of total revenues.

The transition is difficult as we try to migrate resources toward the Web, where revenues are growing, without abandoning the traditional on-paper product, still the bread and butter. It seems there must be a tipping point out there where the turn to online will accelerate and then dominate.

As we think about our careers, maybe it makes sense to think about those two revenue streams and the idea of a tipping point. Can you mimic the big transition on a micro scale and adjust your workload or take on some freelance work so that a growing percentage of your income comes from digital media?

It seems like a wise thing to do.

The cover of this month's Presstime magazine is about eight trends for newspapers in 2008.

One is outsourcing and offshoring work. That is a scary trend for journalists who draw newspaper paychecks. What is a defensive strategy? Try two of the other trends: hyperlocal news coverage -- very difficult to offshore -- and multimedia.

Beat Notes for Everyone

I have one of those rare jobs in journalism that does not come with a lot of structure.

Some days I am on a college campus. Sometimes I am at a journalism convention. And sometimes I am meeting with groups in the community. Even when I am in the office, I might be at of our bureaus or working a 6 a.m. Web shift or a late shift as news editor.

I do not do a lot of meetings. There is not a deadline that I must meet every day so that people will know where they can consistently find me.

I need and value this flexibility. And although I know my editors trust me, I am sure they sometimes wonder what the devil I am doing. So, I send them a weekly note, like the notes that reporters might write for their editors. My note says where I'll be and what I am doing. A second part of the note shows my plans for the upcoming quarter and the last part shows my plans up to a year out. I send copies to my bosses' administrative assistants, too.

In addition to keeping my editors in the loop about what I am doing, it helps me organize my time more strategically.

For those who worry that their bosses don't know what they are doing, a beat note can be part of the answer.

For Road Warriors

If you've been stuck in an airport, looking for free wireless, you've likely been frustrated. Try this: Find one of the exclusive clubrooms that frequent travelers pay to work in and camp outside of it. You may be able to tap in to the free wireless.

Women, Looks and Interviewing

A new study says that people who are good looking get better job offers than people with average looks.

According to a United Press International story, female interviewers gave more high-status job packages to good-looking men than they did to average looking men.

This disparity did not show up among male interviewers, the research showed. However, male interviewers gave our more low-status job packages overall.
 
The study also found that average looking guys did less well than average looking women.

The study was by Carl Senior and Michael J.R. Butler of Aston University in Birmingham, England. In a statement, they said, "When someone is viewed as attractive, they are often assumed to have a number of positive social traits and greater intelligence. This is known as the 'halo effect' and it has previously been shown to affect the outcome of job interviews."

The Bouba-Kiki Effect and Interviews

I had heard of the halo and horns effect -- the first impressions that interviewers may have of job candidates -- but I had not heard of the Bouba-Kiki Effect until I read about it in the blog of Santiago Iniquez, dean of the business school at IE Business School in Madrid.

He wrote about a visit by Brett Steele, director of the Architectural Academy School of Architecture. Steele spoke about first impressions and how, when presented with the two figures shown here and a choice between the names "Bouba" and "Kiki," almost everyone associates the pointy one with Kiki and the smooth-edged one with Bouba. And it doesn't really matter whether the subject speaks English. People from many languages and cultures shared the same behavior.

The study was performed in 1929 by Wolfgang Kohler. He did not ask peole to express a preference, but the worldwide consistency in behavior makes you marvek at the power of first impressions.

Meeting Politics

Meetings are great for studying people.

Note how the best and brightest people express themselves. Are they prepared, or do they wing it? Are they long-winded or succinct? How do they speak? What is their body language? How do they handle questions and criticisms? What do they say when they do not know the answer?

Observing and adopting the best qualities of the best people around you can be as important as any seminar you'll ever attend.

Don't Play the Office Blame Game

This happened to a young friend of mine last week.

He was given an important assignment with inaccurate instructions. He completed the assignment as instructed, but the results were that the work went awry.

When the inquisition occurred, he did not blame his more experienced colleague. He simply said that there had been some miscommunication and worked overtime to correct the error. He knew that if things got really sticky he could always point out the erroneous instructions later.

He did not shift the blame to where it belonged and avoided looking petty and alienating someone he has to work with. An upper=level manager told him, privately, that the company does not allocate blame and that, if they did, he would not get any.

His stock in the company went up because he did not react defensively to a bad situation.

Morning Briefing Can Get You Ready

Free Press Business Editor Randy Essex takes a page from the book of some high-powered executives every morning.

He knows that they do not go to work without thoroughly briefing themselves on the latest news. So, he does the same thing.

And you can, too.

Executives used to live off clipping services. Now, with alerts and RSS feeds, you can make sure that your computer downloads the brain food you need while you sleep. A little early-morning reading consistently done will mak eyo something of a marvel among your co-workers.