Adding the 'Human Touch' to Your Job Search
Looking for a job can be discouraging. Being rejected can be downright depressing. Getting a promotion or a new position is exciting. Any career transition (whether good or bad) tends to be confusing and sometimes scary. Your whole career path will be full of emotions that run the gamut from celebratory to an almost grievous sense of loss. While you may have a support group in the form of...
Read More5 Unique Places You Need to Look for Your Next Hire
The competition for top talent has grown fiercer within the last two years, according to more than 80 percent of the 520 organizations surveyed by CIPD for its "2015 Resource and Talent Planning" report. Not only that, but also roughly 75 percent of organizations are on what seems like an endless search for specialized talent to fill niche roles. Finding the right talent requires much,...
Read MoreStarting a Business: 4 Things Female Founders Should Keep in Mind
Starting a business can be daunting. I've often said that if you want to know what you're made of, there are three ways to find out: have a child, write a book, or start a business. For women in particular, there are special issues to consider before taking the plunge. Here are four key things that every woman should do and consider before she starts a business. 1. Define Success for...
Read More4 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Prepare for a New Job
Starting a new job can be stressful. All the new coworkers, new processes, and new responsibilities often feel incredibly overwhelming. However, in order to grow in your career, change is necessary. During the week prior to the start of your new position, do what you can to prepare yourself, and you should find that your first day goes by smoothly and with few -- if any --speed bumps along...
Read More6 Reasons Why Some Successful Business Owners Become Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! This Week's Question: Why did you choose entrepreneurship? The answers below are provided by members of FounderSociety, an...
Read More4 Leaders Influencing HR Technology Today
The leaders of HR technology run in a tightly knit circle, and together, they are constantly shaping the way technology impacts everyday HR practitioners. The following four leaders in HR technology dominate the social sphere through their active blogs, columns, and talkshows, and they all guide and influence the ways we think about technology in HR. 1. Bill Kutik Bill Kutik is a...
Read MoreI Don't Carry a Bag: Networking Isn't About Collecting Business Cards
If, like me, you spend a lot of time at trade, industry, and business networking events, you've probably accumulated a thick stack of business cards and a robust number of LinkedIn contacts. Or maybe you're one of those people who can instantly turn any chance encounter into an opportunity to engage in a conversation that leads to sharing professional pursuits (an almost uniquely American...
Read MoreHow to Find Fulfilling Work: 7 Practical Lessons
The prospect of finding fulfilling work is a powerful one. Most -- if not all -- of us want careers that reflect our talents, passions, and values. If you count yourself as someone who is unhappy with their job, then this article will hopefully help you overcome your fear of change and find a more meaningful career. To be successful in your work and ultimately create happiness and...
Read MoreCall Me, Maybe?
I resigned from the regional recruiting firm where I worked for the past eight years in January. After taking some time off to travel, relax, and enjoy a little "funemployment," I decided that it was time to get back to the real world and start thinking about what's next for me and my career. I reached out to my network and started reconnecting with old colleagues, but I also decided I should try...
Read MoreWhy You Might Want to Focus a Little Less on Hiring for Cultural Fit
Diverse teams are awesome -- just straight-up awesome. Numerous studies from multiple sources have found strong correlations between the diversity of a team's members and the success of the team. The idea is that diverse teams are made up of people with diverse perspectives and ideas, and this mixture of perspectives leads to better problem-solving and more creative solutions. Diverse teams...
Read MoreShould I Separate My Business Values From My Personal Values?
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose. I am a speaker, an author, and an expert in time and project management. I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs create effective systems so that they can comfortably delegate to others, be more profitable, and have time to enjoy life. At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run. Today's question comes...
Read More5 Ways to Save on Business Travel and Make Employees Happy
In a business culture obsessed with more revenue and lower costs, we can fall into the trap of believing that more savings are always better than less. However, there's such a thing as spending too little on business travel. Road warriors know that travel is mentally and physically exhausting. When a college kid says, "I'd really love to have a job where I travel all the time," the...
Read More10 Skills and Qualities That Employers Want to See in Candidates
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question on jobs data you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! This Week's Question: Hiring new employees is a complex process -- and we're not going to pretend it isn't. But, in...
Read MoreTalent, Tools, and Time: Why So Few Companies Act on Big Data
In a recent survey, Scout Exchange found that 57 percent of HR professionals "felt that using big data principles was better than relying on their 'gut'" -- and that only 16 percent of these same HR professionals were actually using big data to review hiring trends. According to Scout Exchange CEO Ken Lazarus, there are a few reasons for this disconnect -- not the least of which is the fact...
Read More4 Steps to More Visibility, Productivity, and Success on LinkedIn
Networking is in imperative for any successful career. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that 70 percent of all jobs are found through networking. One of the most relevant and impactful resources for networking is LinkedIn. In fact, the very core of LinkedIn's existence is networking. The company's mission is simple: "to connect the world's professionals to make them more...
Read MoreReaching Self-Actualization Through Our Jobs [Infographic]
According to Abraham Maslow, reaching self-actualization is the ultimate goal of personal development. When we are self-actualized, we are more likely to feel comfortable in who we are; to be able to find the reality in a given situation; to be independent thinkers; to connect with others in deeper ways; and to be compassionate. In order to reach self-actualization, we have to fulfill the...
Read MoreHow to Make Your Company Your Family
I've worked at many places, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Most described themselves as having a "family-style culture." They had happy hours, brought cake into work for birthdays, and hosted bring-your-kids-to-work days. In my mind, those activities are commonplace and loosely categorized as family-like. When my cofounders and I started Enplug, we wanted to create the...
Read More4 Unusual Traits You Should Be Looking for in a Sales Professional
What characteristics do you think of when you envision a successful salesperson? For most people, words like outgoing, calculating, and calm traditionally come to mind -- but are these really the best a salesperson can offer? Do these characteristics ensure high sales numbers, or has the image of the friendly, outgoing door-to-door salesman just become our automatic reference point whenever...
Read More6 Ways to Revitalize a Toxic Workplace Culture, Part 1
The "2014 Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture Report" from TINYpulse found that only 36 percent of the 200,000 survey respondents rated their organizations' company cultures as "strong." This means that, even if you look around your office and see what you believe are contented faces, there's a good chance that roughly two out of three of your workers regard your company culture as...
Read More4 Pieces of Conventional Hiring Wisdom You Should Ignore
My business partner Jeff and I recently hired our first full-time employee, and we were nervous. We knew that choosing the wrong employee could be a devastating hit to our business. Before extending an offer, we read a lot of research and talked to consultants about how to make a good hire. And ultimately, we went the other way on a lot of decisions. Here are some of the hiring myths we...
Read MoreLooking at the Skills Gap from a Job Seeker's Perspective
As HR professionals and/or members of the recruiting industry, we've all heard about the skills gap: the idea that employers are having a hell of a time finding talent with the right skills to fill their open positions. A little over a year ago, I wrote about the gap myself and railed against it as the result of our weird passive candidate fetish. I, as I am wont to do, pointed the finger at...
Read More3 Tips on Finding the Secret Pool of Unadvertised Jobs
It's true that landing a job depends on your skills, your experience, and your interview technique -- but your ability to find a position also relies heavily on being in the right place at the right time. Your chances of a getting a job will be massively boosted if your perfectly suited resume lands on the desk of the right recruiter at the right time. But what is the "right time" when it...
Read MoreMy Manager Is Better Than Yours! 5 Things That Make Managers Great
Things don't change in the workplace. We give things different names, but they don't change. "Employees" have become "people", "staff", and "talent". "Personnel" became "Human Resources", "Organizational Development", and "Employee Relations". "Employee Morale" became "engagement" and "happiness". The "hiring and orientation" process became "onboarding". Things don't...
Read More5 Ways You Can Immediately Improve Your Relationship With a Hiring Manager
If you're anything like the recruiters I've spoken with, it's a fair assumption that you and your hiring managers don't always see eye to eye. Okay, maybe not every hiring manager -- I'm sure there are ones you're in sync with like too-good-to-be-true-sitcom-friendships -- but whether you work with one, five, or 50, there are moments you're both...
Read MoreWhy Your Next Performance Review Will Suck
According to Jonny Rejholec, senior product manager at BambooHR, employees aren't asking for much when it comes to performance reviews. "They want to know what's expected of them and where they stand," he says. "They want a manager who cares and recognizes their contribution." And yet, despite these very simple needs, traditional performance reviews rarely deliver any value to...
Read More3 Secrets of Video Interview Software
There are many reasons to adopt video interview software in your hiring process, but some of the hidden benefits don't seem to get much airtime. Having watched thousands of organizations modernize their hiring processes, we'll unveil the hidden benefits that aren't always talked about. The Two-Minute Disqualification Ever meet a candidate whom you knew would disqualified from the hiring process...
Read MoreTop 5 Resume Skills You Can Learn for Free — While Job Hunting!
One thing I tell every job seeker I work with is that you have to use your job search time productively. You have to find ways to proactively add skills to your resume while you're on the hunt for a new role. I don't mean to say that you need to go back to school or take online classes at one of those colleges that aren't really colleges (University of Phoenix, anyone?). Rather, what I...
Read MoreImportant Information as Millennials Enter the Workforce
Looking to recruit more millennials to your workplace? A study from the Pew Center for Research shows they are now the largest generation in the U.S. workforce. That may not sound terribly surprising, but wait until you find out where all these millennials are coming from. An analysis of census data conducted by the center found that more than one-in-three American workers are millennials....
Read MoreHow Your Personality May Affect Your Career [Infographic]
According to several semi-reliable online personality tests, I'm an INFP. And, according to a new infographic from Truity, this means I am: likely to earn a fairly low salary for the rest of my life; likely to be relatively unsatisfied with my job; and relatively unlikely to ever be anyone's supervisor. Ouch, Truity. Ouch. But in all seriousness, the trajectory of one's career is...
Read MoreIs It Better to Take a Bad Job With a Good Boss, or a Good Job With a Bad Boss?
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose. I am a speaker, an author, and an expert in time and project management. I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs create effective systems so that they can comfortably delegate to others, be more profitable, and have time to enjoy life. At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run. Today's question comes...
Read MoreHow Do You Know That Your Hiring Process Really Works?
Talent has been called a company's "most important competitive asset." It accounts for a significant amount of company spending, too -- for many business, labor costs are "second only to the cost of real estate." And yet, HR still struggles to make its business case to the C-suite. "If you go back in the recruiting and HR world even ten years ago, there was always a lot of discussion about...
Read MoreWhat to Do If You Keep Losing Talent to the Competition
If you're regularly losing great talent to your competitors, you likely feel drained of morale, unstable, and constantly anxious, waiting for the next employee to jump ship. Being on your toes at all times is not necessarily a bad thing in business, but when there is a net outward flow of talent to the competition, then you need to take action. Before doing that, though, you need to get some...
Read MoreTraining the Sharpest Tools in the Shed
It's almost harvest season in Indiana. That means business -- quite literally. It's the beginning of a new quarter, and there is plenty of fresh clientele to pick from the prospective fields. But harvesting the right clients means setting the groundwork with the sharpest tools in the shed. Yes, that was one huge gardening metaphor for recruiting and training great people -- but a good...
Read MorePlaybook: 3 Techniques for 2015's Savviest Recruiters
Richard Campione, CEO of Findly, makes frequent reference to "growth hacker marketing" during the course of our phone call, but I wouldn't call it a quirk or a preoccupation. In fact, from where I stand, Campione makes a pretty solid case for why recruiters should "take a page from the playbooks of growth hackers," as he says. First outlined by Qualaroo CEO Sean Ellis in a 2010 blog post,...
Read More5 Important Lessons in Empathetic Leadership
When a devastating magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit Sichuan, China in May 2008, my late father Dr. Rongxiang Xu was the first person to assemble a team of medical professionals and head into the disaster zone. These heroic actions didn't surprise me in the least. Dr. Xu devoted his entire life and career to helping other human beings. He made great advancements in the world of organ...
Read MoreThe 'Candid' in Candidate: Hiring People, Not Resumes
There's a big difference between what's written on paper and what's reality. When it comes to new hires, know this: people are more than words on a page. Lesson.ly got a rock climbing coach, a yoga clothier, and a professional soccer player in the same room to run our company. This is the epitome of hiring people, not resumes. A resume reads involvement, credibility, and diversity. What...
Read MoreSocial Media Recruiting: the Basics
If you're new to social media recruiting, it can feel complicated and intimidating -- but it doesn't have to be that way. Just pick your platform carefully, have a plan for your posts, and commit to following up on comments to keep it fresh. Above all, remember that most social media users are on mobile devices, not computers. Let's break it down: Pick Your Platform All too often, we...
Read More5 Tips for Beating the Return-to-Work Blues
Some people come back from their vacations feeling energized, refreshed, and raring to go -- but, as it turns out, these people are the fortunate few. The reality is that within three days of their returns, more than half of employees feel their stress levels are as a high as ever -- as if they had never even been on vacation. If you're one of those people who suffers from the...
Read MoreHow to Protect Your Online Reputation in the Social Media Age
As an entrepreneur who has spent a lot of time building a positive and powerful online reputation for myself, I need to make sure I'm working alongside others who have done the same. Thanks to social media and Google, it's quite easy to find personal and business histories on nearly anyone -- especially if they aren't careful with their social media activity. I'm not the only...
Read MoreWhy You Should Be Worried If Employees Aren't Quitting Your Business
Most employers live in fear of high turnover rates -- and, in many respects, these fears are justified. Surveys suggest that as much as 51 percent of all employees in the U.S. are either actively seeking or open to finding new jobs. About 20 percent of full-time employees want to quit their jobs outright. That being said, we should not allow our fear to blind us to the benefits -- yes,...
Read More5 Tips for Managing a Remote Team
If you're used to managing an office full of employees, the idea of managing a remote team might seem a little daunting. How can you tell who is working, and when? How can you keep track of everyone's schedules, much less their productivity? The truth is, managing a remote team does require you to think outside of the, well, office, but it's fairly easy to do -- and you'll have...
Read MoreWhy Social Recruiting Is Actually Really Difficult
Earlier this year, employer branding firm Universum released a four-part study, "2020 Outlook: the Future of Employer Branding." Based on a survey of more than 2000 HR professionals and CEOs from around the world, the study looks at where employer branding is today and how employer branding may evolve over the next five years. Over the past few weeks, we explored the first three...
Read More4 Benefits of a Winning Candidate Experience
It is growing increasingly difficult to become one of the best places to work, and we all wish that there were a magic formula for achieving this status. The companies that get there are the ones that make candidate experience a priority in their sourcing and recruiting practices. There are various avenues to take in this approach, ranging from simple enhancements to more complex endeavors....
Read MoreWhy Your Horrible Boss Is Your Greatest Teacher
We've all had them: bosses who are jerks, narcissists, dictators. The "my-way-or-the-highway" types, ruling the office with iron fists and threatening job security on a daily basis. These bosses make their employees' lives hell. A major contributing factor to this situation is that many companies make a critical mistake when installing bosses: promoting someone into a leadership role purely...
Read MoreTap Into Your Character Strengths at Work [Infographic]
We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. We know that -- by why stop there? According to a new infographic from Happify, just knowing our strengths isn't quite enough. What we need to do is use those strengths, in our personal lives and at work. "Tapping into our strengths helps us make progress on our goals, boosting our feelings of independence and confidence," says the...
Read MoreRetaining and Motivating Staff: a 5-Point Guide for HR Professionals
Acquiring and retaining the most capable and competent professionals are two of the main priorities for human resources managers. Nurturing your existing staff can help avoid a high turnover rate -- your staff will be happier and more invested in your company. However, you need to consider this task with forethought and care. The economic situation and global competition have had a great...
Read More10 Lessons From a Millennial Recruiter | My First Month on the Job
In the span of five short months, I leapt from intern to full-time employee at a boutique recruiting firm focusing on software, engineering, IT, and cyber security. I went from working part-time while wrapping up my final semester of college to spending full days in the office, and while my internship was filled with training and insights vital to my future role as a recruiter, nothing prepares...
Read MoreWhen Is It Okay to Say 'No' at Work?
Hello, this is Laura Lee Rose. I am a speaker, an author, and an expert in time and project management. I help busy professionals and entrepreneurs create effective systems so that they can comfortably delegate to others, be more profitable, and have time to enjoy life. At the end of the day, I transform the way you run your business into a business you love to run. In today's installment of...
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