Why 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...
Tap 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...
Retaining 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...
10 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...
When 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...
What to Do When Your Job Search Feels Hopeless
I've written a lot in the past about the tactics and techniques people can use when searching for a job, but today, I want to take a slightly different approach. I want to look at what I like to call the "inner game" aspect of job searching. What Is the Inner Game of Job Searching? When I talk about the inner game, I'm not referring to any specific technique for finding a new job....
Six Sigma: Getting an Edge in Today's Job Market
Recent graduates entering the workforce and seasoned professionals have more in common than it might at first appear, and at the top of the list of similarities are that hard-earned college degrees they all hold in their chosen professions. While the value of those degrees is more obvious than ever -- an April Bloomberg report reflects that power in terms of real earnings, in the context of...
Why Machine Learning Is a Job Seeker's Best Friend
Jobandtalent is a job-matching platform based in London and Madrid. Given the company's recently announced plans to expand into the U.S., we thought now would be a good time to talk to cofounder and CEO Juan Urdiales about what his company does and why he believes job matching, rather than job searching, will soon be the new normal. When we talk about the passive vs. active candidate...
How to Decide Between Multiple Job Offers
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 came...
Social Media Myths, Realities, and Mistakes
I have a confession to make: I am not on Facebook, nor do I tweet -- and I still consider myself a marketing and communications expert in 2015. I own a (dumb/flip) cell phone, but I only turn it on to make phone calls. I have many friends and colleagues who think I am crazy. I love technology, but I do not want it to run my life. I prefer to manage it, and not the other way around. Call me...
4 Key Factors in Prepping for a Video Interview
Receiving your first invitation to complete a video interview may seem a little nerve wracking, but with proper preparation, video interviews can be a great opportunity for you to showcase your skills and talents to potential employers. Because it seems that video interviews are quickly becoming the norm in the interviewing process, RIVS sat down with Gregory Rothstein, photography solutions...
The Executive's Checklist for Business Success in an Era of Constant Change
I've interviewed a lot of people during my tenure at Recruiter.com, and all of those people have shared what feels like literal tons of (sometimes conflicting) opinions on the states of business, talent, and the economy today. But of all the insights from all the thought leaders, none has stuck with me as much as Guy Kawasaki's assertion that "a five-year business plan is kind of...
Hate Looking for a Job? 8 Signs You Need a Career Coach
Are you wondering if hiring a career coach is right for you? Just ask yourself these three simple questions: Do you have a serious problem landing an interview? Do you hate your job, but don't know what else to go for? Do you get worried even thinking about job interviews? Did you answer "Yes" to any one of these questions? If so, you are in need of some help from a hiring...
7 Rules for Employee Engagement
Welcome to Recruiter Q&A, 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 Q&A! This Week's Question: How do you engage employees at work? These answers come from the members of BusinessCollective, a virtual mentorship...
What Millennials Want Employers to Know About Social Media
It's the age of millennials. As of Q1 of 2015, this generation has surpassed Gen. X as the largest group in the U.S. labor force, according to Pew Research Center. There's no doubt they're changing the shape of the modern workplace, so companies have to make sure they can keep up. One of the most radical differences between today's workplace and that of previous generations is the...
3 Ways to Accelerate Your Hiring Process
A recent report from Glassdoor found that the hiring process is taking longer than it has in years. In the U.S., for example, the hiring process has increased in duration from an average of 12.6 days in 2010 to 22.9 days in 2014. This trend is reflected across many of the major economies, including the U.K., France, Germany, and Australia. The researchers behind the study believe that...
3 Tips to Help Millennials Manage Older Workers Effectively
The idea of a younger boss managing an older worker is not a new one. Fast-track programs that quickly promote bright, young talent have been around for decades. That being said, the demise of the job-for-life and strict hierarchical career pathways has made room for more flexible careers. Nowadays, we don't all climb the corporate ladder at the same rate -- or even in the same direction....
Social Needs to Get Personal
Ed. Note: This begins a series of posts from Richard Weaver of My Expert People on the world of social recruiting. Be on the lookout for parts two and three, coming soon! Social recruiting has been one of the big stories in hiring over the past few years. Led by LinkedIn, social networks are routinely used to increase reach, spread news of jobs, and/or actively identify potential...
Want to Boost Employee Engagement? Empower Your Team Leaders
On Monday, and again on Thursday, we explored The Marcus Buckingham Company's (TMBC) StandOut Global Engagement Index (GEI) and the reasons why employee engagement levels are so low these days. We concluded yesterday by saying that we only have ourselves to blame: employee engagement levels are dismal because "we haven't equipped the people who facilitate engagement with the tools they need...
5 Tips to Make the Most of Your Time Away From the Office
In a recent post, I highlighted the anxiety that many Americans feel about taking vacation days, for fear that time away from the office would damage their careers. It became clear during my research that a vacation should leave you feeling rested, relaxed, and ready to tackle whatever comes your way when you return to work -- but that can only happen if you have a good vacation. You can...
4 Cold Email Formulas That You Need to Know About
First cold calls, now cold emails. For HR-tech companies trying to expand their professional networks and gain exposure for their products or services, cold emailing is essential to branching out. Unfortunately, no one really likes being bombarded with unsolicited emails. In fact, according to MailChimp's July 2015 Email Marketing Benchmarks, companies within the business and finance...
The 'Really Weird Irony' of Low Employee Engagement Levels
On Monday, we wrote about The Marcus Buckingham Company's (TMBC) StandOut Global Engagement Index (GEI), a new tool for measuring employee engagement levels. According to Marcus Buckingham, founder and namesake of TMBC, the GEI differs from traditional methods of measuring employee engagement in two important ways: The GEI's results are calibrated according to country. The GEI measures...
How to Make the Recruitment Process Run Smoothly for Your Hiring Team
The recruiting process can be time-consuming, and it often feels inefficient to hiring departments. Finding high-quality candidates to fill important roles and take on critical responsibilities at your organization is rarely a one-step task. Employees are an asset to any business, and finding the best employees is crucial for the growth and success of every company. We've all been on the...
How to Take a Vacation Without Damaging Your Career
As temperatures start to soar this summer holiday season, it's likely that many of you will be thinking about surf, sand, sun, and some good, old-fashioned rest and relaxation. At least, that's what I would like to think. But the sad reality is that it seems the majority of you will not be thinking such positive thoughts. In fact, many of you are worried about taking your paid vacation days...
7 Questions Businesses Should Ask Potential Web Developers
When you recognize that your company needs a Web developer to create a compelling website, the first step is finding a team capable of achieving your goals. While some might want a website just to provide information, others use it to attract new customers. As the owner of an Internet marketing company that works with Web design, I've found that the following questions are good to ask...
How Slack Improved Our Company Culture
My company, a commercial real estate brokerage with 15 people, uses Slack, and we have found it to be an integral part of not only our community culture, but also our day-to-day functioning and productivity. At TheSquareFoot, we opted for an open floor plan. We love how this layout fosters a strong sense of community and openness for our team. It encourages daily check-ins, collaboration, and...
3 Powerful Ways to Rescue a Bad Hire
Everybody makes bad hires on occasion. According to a CEB study, more than one in five hiring managers say that "20 percent of their team shouldn't have been hired in the first place." Similarly, a 2012 CareerBuilder study found that nearly 70 percent of employers said they had made a bad hire in the last year. Given that the standard candidate assessments available to us are far from...
6 Ways to Find Professional Development When Your Employer Isn't Helping
Welcome to Recruiter Q&A, 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 Q&A! This Week's Question: Let's say you're a passionate employee who really wants to advance their career. Only problem is, your company doesn't offer...
3 Unusual Tips For Hiring Your First Employee That I Wish I Had Known
Your good buddy Jon Lee here, back from a very relaxing vacation in Turks and Caicos (you've gotta go if you can, -- it's gorgeous) to talk to you about a very common, but very vexing problem for new businesses: hiring your first employee. You are in the right place if: You've gotten your business started, or joined a small company, and you have customers, possibly even profits, but now you...
5 Tips for Writing a Meaningful Mission Statement
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to job market 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: Entrepreneur calls mission statements "a key tool that can be just as important as your business plan."...
Could a No-Fire Policy Boost Your Business?
A no-fire policy -- in which an employer agrees from the outset not to fire employees – is the kind of off-the-wall HR policy that has the potential to be both an employer branding dream and an employment law nightmare. Staff would love you, and your legal counsel would loathe you. This kind of policy sounds completely impractical in the contemporary era of the contingent workers and...
The Courtship and Marriage of Millennials and the Staffing Industry
According to studies by both Deloitte and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, millennials currently make up 36 percent of the workforce and will account for 46 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2025. The members of this millennial workforce have their own thoughts and ideas about what they want in a career. Gone are the days of the traditional workplace, where employees...
The Top Resume and Cover Letter Mistakes
Having a hard time getting an interview even though you have the experience to get the job you want? Maybe you're making one of these resume or cover letter mistakes! Failing to Proofread We might be biased, but we think that grammar and spelling errors are the worst. Not only does sloppy grammar make you look unprofessional, but it also speaks to your attention to detail and your...
Motivation and Self-Esteem: a Tirade
The business gurus are right when they tell us that many of us have trouble filling the glass -- have trouble living the business life we feel we should be living -- because of our lack of self-esteem. Of course, sometimes one of the reasons we don't esteem ourselves more is the very fact that we are not living that life. This is the place where a self-help article is supposed to pat you...
Building a Better Employee Engagement Tool
"Employee engagement, at the moment, is in a weird situation," says Marcus Buckingham, a researcher, author, speaker, and head of the Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC). You're likely already aware of the dismal state of employee engagement in the U.S. and abroad, but the "weird" situation of which Buckingham speaks goes much further beyond that. In his opinion, we have more than just an employee...
5 Ways to Use Big Data to Get Scientific About Recruiting
As a discipline, recruiting has always been on the front lines of competitive strategy for any business: finding the talent to execute the vision while providing valuable insight back to the business on how factors influencing hiring and ongoing cultivation of talent might impact company development. Recruiters are key to finding the people who will execute their company's vision, and are...
How a Millennial Chose a Recruiting Career
I have heard that few people ever intend to get into recruiting, but somehow, they stumble upon it early on in their careers, and next thing you know, they're hooked. My colleagues tell me that I'm a unique breed because I developed an interest for it early on, choosing it as my path right after graduating college. So, How Did This Millennial Decide on a Career in Recruiting? I'll...
Embrace Your Oft-Criticized Management Traits — They Just May Be Your Best Attributes!
We often see articles condemning management's procrastination, scheduling of meetings, identification of generalized-vs.-SMART objectives for their teams, and even its habit of being away from the office when team members need assistance. These traits are normally viewed as destroying the average manager's effectiveness and wasting the precious time of the modern workplace. I would agree...
How to Be One of the World's Most Attractive Employers
Who wouldn't kill for a title like that? World's Most Attractive Employer. Is that not the height of prestige? But what makes an organization the "World's Most Attractive Employer"? How do you reach that level? According to Universum's latest study, we should be asking those questions of Google -- after all, Google topped Universum's lists of the 10 most attractive employers in the...
4 Simple Ways to Ace Your Interview Every Time
So, your resume is buttoned up and the interviews are starting to roll it, but you have yet to seal the deal. Perhaps you think the interviews are going well, but the bottom line is you aren't getting job offers, and there is always room for improvement. Follow these four tips to boost your interview skills and impress your potential bosses -- and finally land that job you want! 1....
If You Want to Find Better Candidates, Start Hiring Remotely
Hey, 1995 called. It wants its ancient hiring methods back. Seriously though: the way we work has changed. Our jobs no longer need to determine the cities we live in. Modern communication tools, high-speed Internet, and portable computing have all made it possible to work from any location in the world. For employers, this is a big deal as they engage the labor market. With such a large...
Three Ways to Effectively Engage and Attract Millennial Customers
Nowadays, for companies and sales teams to more successfully engage, attract, and develop new customer relationships, it's important they're aware of this interesting fact shared by J. Walker Smith, Ph.D., and Ann Clurman, coauthors of the book, Rocking the Ages: "Generationally determined lifestyles and social values exercise as much influence on buying and purchasing as more commonly...
How to Successfully Re-Enter the Workforce
Whether it's been a few years or a few months since your days in the working world, finding a new job after a time lapse can be intimidating. Many candidates who take time off to continue their educations, raise a family, or travel often struggle with where to begin their job searches. Getting back in the game is a challenge, but proving you're qualified for a job is easier than you might...
8 Workday Rituals to Boost Your Morale
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: Are you the type who needs to take a lap around the office every day at precisely 2 PM? Do you just have to give...
Is Persona-Based Recruiting the Future?
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. In the course of the next few weeks, we'll be...
What Employees Want From Your Learning Management System
Once associated with compliance training and the somewhat dreary task of onboarding new employees, learning management systems (LMS) are currently being reinvented as employee engagement tools. And given how disengaged much of the global workforce is these days -- according to Gallup, only 31.5 percent of U.S. workers are engaged in their jobs -- some might say this reinvention is long...
The Answer to Why the New Employee Quit So Soon
In the first entry of Diary of the Happiest Employee on Earth, we read about a welcome party to honor a newly hired employee on their first day. In contrast to organizations that celebrate when people are leaving, this company celebrates the arrival. It's always been a mystery to me why we have celebratory lunches when people leave a company -- especially those who choose to take their...
How to Choose a Development Team That Works for Your Business
Your development team -- whether in-house, outsourced, or a combination thereof -- is often crucial to your product's success. But choosing how to build your team can be difficult. My company, SmartLogic, does outsourced application development, and through this work, I've witnessed these various methods in action. Depending on the needs and stage of your product and company, each model...
