Giveaway How To Work With Headhunters

Giveaway How To Work With Headhunters Im about done recording the video for LinkedIn for Job Seekers, the second edition.  This DVD is more updated and more awesome preorder it here. The winner of last weeks contest is drum roll. Shane Smith.  Others had ideas for job seekers using a job board, but the question was what job boards should do differently.  Runner up is CareerTiger.com founder Abhijeet. This week answer this question and win the fantastic book by Ask The Headhunter Nick Corcodilos titled How to Work with Headhunters.  Nicks work is fantastic and this book is invaluable. Share a story good or bad, funny or sad about working with a headhunter or recruiter.  One that makes you cringe or smile or something I want to get shocked or moved. ANSWER ON THIS BLOG not on Twitter, or Facebook, etc. Want a taste of the book?  Click here for a snippet. Giveaway How To Work With Headhunters Im about done recording the video for LinkedIn for Job Seekers, the second edition.  This DVD is more updated and more awesome preorder it here. The winner of last weeks contest is drum roll. Shane Smith.  Others had ideas for job seekers using a job board, but the question was what job boards should do differently.  Runner up is CareerTiger.com founder Abhijeet. This week answer this question and win the fantastic book by Ask The Headhunter Nick Corcodilos titled How to Work with Headhunters.  Nicks work is fantastic and this book is invaluable. Share a story good or bad, funny or sad about working with a headhunter or recruiter.  One that makes you cringe or smile or something I want to get shocked or moved. ANSWER ON THIS BLOG not on Twitter, or Facebook, etc. Want a taste of the book?  Click here for a snippet. Giveaway How To Work With Headhunters Im about done recording the video for LinkedIn for Job Seekers, the second edition.  This DVD is more updated and more awesome preorder it here. The winner of last weeks contest is drum roll. Shane Smith.  Others had ideas for job seekers using a job board, but the question was what job boards should do differently.  Runner up is CareerTiger.com founder Abhijeet. This week answer this question and win the fantastic book by Ask The Headhunter Nick Corcodilos titled How to Work with Headhunters.  Nicks work is fantastic and this book is invaluable. Share a story good or bad, funny or sad about working with a headhunter or recruiter.  One that makes you cringe or smile or something I want to get shocked or moved. ANSWER ON THIS BLOG not on Twitter, or Facebook, etc. Want a taste of the book?  Click here for a snippet.

Be Yourself

Be Yourself “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” Oscar Wilde. A recent post from The Muse promised to reveal the number one attribute hiring managers are looking for.   The answer will surprise no one: they’re looking for “fit.” Fitting in to the team is the most important factor in whether you succeed at a new job. In fact, many HR professionals will tell you that people get hired for skills and fired because of fit. So fit is the most important, and the most difficult, thing to determine during the interview process. Part of the problem is the way most interviews are designed. Many hiring managers ask hypothetical questions that allow a candidate to answer theoretically instead of providing examples of past behavior.   Behavior-based interviewing solves some of that problem by changing questions from “How would you handle this issue” to “Tell me about a time you handled this issue.” But that doesn’t solve the other part of the problem: the candidates themselves. Interviews are like first dates, and that means that people feel pressure to say anything. Candidates want the interviewer to like them, so much so that they may actually fudge a little in their responses. “You love foreign movies? I LOVE foreign movies!” Candidates will claim to be anything they think the interviewer wants them to be. They’re not necessarily being dishonest; they think they’re just giving the hiring manager what she’s asking for. Here’s the problem with that. When you present yourself as something you’re not, you run the risk that the interviewer will take you at your word. You could wind up in a role that’s a terrible fit for you and that will make you miserable at work. When you’re miserable, you stack the odds against being able to do a good job. How do you combat the urge to exaggerate or invent qualities you don’t have? First, avoid the mistake that most candidates make: thinking that an interview is a one-way conversation. You have a responsibility to discover whether this job is a good fit for you. Your success   and the success of the company   depends on it. Learn to present your personality in a way that helps the interviewer understand how you roll. “I’m an introvert.   Although I work well as part of a team [present examples of this in your past careers], I do need some quiet space during the day where I recharge my batteries by focusing on a project. How would that fit into the work flow of this team?” Here are some questions that can help both parties decide if you’re a fit for the job. Ask about team time versus alone time (extrovert / introvert) As about management style to determine how independently you’ll be working Ask about the pace and volume of work to determine if it’s a fit for your energy level Ask about your greatest strengths and how you’ll be able to use them in this job Ask about how people get along in the office and celebrate success if relationships are a part of what makes work worthwhile for you Don’t be afraid to show who you are during the interview.   It’s better to miss a chance at a job than to be fired in a few months because you weren’t the right fit.

Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome

Focus on the Process, Not the Outcome Not Charles. Take a lyre player: he’s relaxed when he performs alone, but put him in front of an audience, and it’s a different story, no matter how beautiful his voice or how well he plays the instrument. Why? Because he not only wants to perform well, he wants to be well received â€" and the latter lies outside his control.   Epictetus, Discourses When someone is not getting the outcome he wants in his job search, he looks for something to blame. A jobseeker I’ll call Charles asked for a meeting in early November to help him overcome what he perceived as obstacles to his success. “I’m hearing that a candidate over 50 years old is not likely to be considered,” he told me. “I’m too old, I’m overqualified, and I can’t seem to get any traction.” As we discussed his career and current search, it was obvious to me that Charles was going in to each interview expecting the worst. He’d talked himself into failure before he ever entered the room.   We spent some time talking about how a long and disappointing job search can wear down your optimism and your ability to see things clearly. In short, Charles was stuck on how he felt, rather than what the interviewer and company needed. He’d tried everything, according to Charles. He’d tried being what “they” said worked; he’d tried to dumb down his resume and experience. He’d tried everything but being himself.   Since you’ve tried everything else, I suggested, why not try just being you for a while? I wasn’t sure how much I’d been able to influence or help Charles, but within a month, I received a phone message and a thank you email from a Charles who seemed like a different man. He’d just received an offer from a solid company, and he was thrilled. “Thank you again for all your help!   I would not have gotten this position without you,” he wrote.   I remembered you mentioning that I needed to look at things from the employers point of view relating my skills to enhancing the businesses success when I was asked questions.   Instead of answering with what I was looking for, I thought about answering in a way that showed this potential employer how I could contribute to both the current and future success of this organization.” Charles had managed to stop worrying about the outcome of an interview â€" that was out of his control. There’s just no way to know whether you’re the best qualified candidate or likely to be chosen for an offer.   You can’t control the outcome; you can only focus on your effort.   Run your best race, and you’ll be proud of what you’ve done whether you win or not. But sometimes, focusing on your effort does net the win. “I was more relaxed when interviewing,” says Charles.   I will admit that I sometimes over think things, but I just decided to relax and be myself. And I felt better when each interview ended.”  Charles had a long interview process with this company: three phone interviews before two in-person interviews. He decided to take notes from each phone interview to improve his performance and consistency should he make it to an in-person interview. (Focusing on the process and understanding that he always had room to improve.) “I’m glad I took notes during the phone interviews because I was asked some of the same questions several different ways,” he wrote.   You taught me how to play the new game in a changing job market, and it was great to feel better prepared.   I also went into these interviews without any real expectations;  I just told myself that if this position was meant for me, it would happen. If it was not, at least I would have learned something and would be able to move on.” He was also able to get out of his own head and get into the employer’s mindset. “My whole outlook on interviews has now changed, and I found myself more relaxed. I was just being myself, which got a better response from the interviewer. As a result, the interviewers also opened up to me more which in turn made me feel more comfortable. I decided to not worry about how the interview went that eliminated some of my stress.   By taking this new approach, I can really say I enjoyed all the interviews I had.” Charles deserves the success he’s had. He showed the courage to look inward at what he could control and improve instead of blaming outside forces for his lack of success.   He listened with an open mind and an open heart, and that opened him up to new outcomes. Epictetus again: “The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”     Best of luck, Charles, in your new position and your newfound confidence.    

What Role Does Social Media Play in Employer Brand

What Role Does Social Media Play in Employer Brand Social media and employer branding go hand in hand nowadays. It affords businesses of all sizes the ability to showcase their culture, their people, and more importantly, their employer brand. Dont  believe me? Here are 10 of the best employer branding practitioners around to explain  why social media is imperative to your employer brand strategy! Sarang Brahme I am a big advocate of social media since I believe that it plays a critical role in listening, engaging and influencing target audience in the most effective manner as it’s a two-way communication platform unlike any other. We need to be active where our employees are and social is at the forefront of our digital lives. It is a fantastic opportunity to build conversations and authentic content-driven employer branding campaigns to attract and engage our talent. Sarang Brahme, Global Social Recruiting   Talent Brand Manager, Capgemini Jennifer Johnston Social Media plays a huge role in employer branding because it paints an authentic and compelling picture of life inside your company. Crafted ad campaigns can’t come close to the connection people can get to our employer brand by searching our hashtag â€" #SalesforceOhana. Having a hashtag that helps your employees organically and spontaneously share is a marketers’ dream for 3 reasons. The impressions are FREE! And highly targeted because the people we want to hire are often in our employees’ networks. And when their friends like and comment, it amps up employee pride and loyalty. Jennifer Johnston, Senior Director of Global Employer Branding, Salesforce Jaclyn Campbell It’s massive. I spend most of my day around content creation; whether it’s taking photos, interviewing employees for story ideas, or writing blogs, it’s all content that will live on our social media channels. I primarily focus on our corporate LinkedIn page as this is currently the best channel to reach and engage with potential candidates. Jaclyn Campbell, Employer Brand Consultant, Optus Ton Rodenburg To reach and engage with people, social media is by far the best way to achieve this. There is no self respecting communications department nowadays that doesn’t harness the power of social media. It can leverage the social power of employees, connections and communities. Also, due to increasing possibilities in advertising it’s now way easier to target and reach a niche audience or even that one specific person that’s extremely talented. I also foresee a scenario in which social networks facilitate in building true talent pipelines and communities around brand and people, enabling future flexible talent in- and out flux super fluent and easy as never before. Ton Rodenburg, Employer BrandingStrategy Director, ARA M/V Human Resource Communications Audra Knight Social media is a very cost effective way to get personalized messaging to target audiences. No need to be on every platform that is trendy. Find out where your employees are spending time online (job hunting or not) and put effort into those channels. And get employees involved! Their networks are much larger than your brand channels and people believe other employees more than brand messaging. Audra Knight, Recruitment Operations Manager, Tenable Hannah Fleishman Social media is one of my favorite employer branding platforms for a few reasons. For starters, it’s accessible. Creating content on social media is free, and it meets your audience where they already are: LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, etc. It can also be a team sport; at HubSpot, we encourage employees to use the hashtag #hubspotlife when sharing an inside look into our culture on their social media accounts. But the best part about using social media for employer branding is authenticity. Social content typically isn’t over-edited or heavily produced; we film many Facebook Live videos with our iPhones and use Canva to create social graphics for free. That’s not only great for teams with limited resources, but it gives candidates a more authentic view of your workplace. Hannah Fleishman, Inbound Recruiting Manager, HubSpot Shaunda Zilich Social media is the number one tool in our online presence that allows us to be transparent and real-time interactive with our direct audience.   We are able to cast very specific ‘nets’ and have real-time conversations with the exact talent we are looking to engage.   It also allows us to listen, understand, and measure behaviors and sentiment about our companies. Shaunda Zilich, Global Employment Brand Leader, GE Jörgen Sundberg Let’s start with the role social media does not play in employer brand; it’s NOT the destination. Rather it’s part of the infrastructure of employer brand activation. There’s a danger of relying too much on social media, marketing metrics are nice but what is the actual impact on your employer brand? Most quality hires will come from referrals, from your career site and maybe even job boards. Social is there and yes it’s good to have a presence but in terms of ROI, it’s not the golden goose the industry was hoping for. Having said that, do use social as a way to amplify your employees’ voices and project the culture on the inside of the business. Just don’t plough a hundred grand into Facebook ads and expect your employer brand to be a success overnight. Jörgen Sundberg, Employer Brand Consultant CEO, Link Humans Carmen Collins Sales people use something called the “Sales Funnel” to help them see what tactics to use at different stages of the buying journey. Our team uses this same funnel when looking at the role social media plays in our employer branding. The top of the funnel is “Awareness” â€" and social spends a lot of time in this area. Cisco had a lot of work to do here, because people thought we were a boring, corporate dinosaur. Through amplifying our employee voices in social media, we’re able to up our “trust” factor   and make people aware of us as a great place to work. Then, on the “consideration” piece of the funnel, we look to drive interactions with our employee stories in social media. We’re telling the story, but are people listening? Remember, there are multiple interactions involved before someone makes the decision to apply. Social media plays a role there as well in the “decision” part of the funnel. If we’re not driving traffic to careers and applies through the pipeline, how are we to prove our worth to the business? Carmen Collins, Social Media Lead Talent Brand, Cisco Estela Vazquez Perez Social media democratizes opportunity. You do not need to arrive first, sign up first or be in the inner circle to learn and take advantage of what companies are offering. If we associate all the exciting things happening inside the company to the relevant conversation out there, we have a powerful formula for success. Social media helps employer brands be relevant and deliver information on time when it is most needed. If nobody is looking for the themes you are interested in bringing out to the latent market, you can still associate and contribute to the hashtags of the cool brands in the conversations if not a trademarked  option. Social media is the channel to communicate now days, providing you have a mature source of content to send your traffic to explore more. Estela Vazquez Perez,  Global Employment Brand Director, Royal Bank of Canada

Theres such a thing as too much workplace collaboration - Debut

Theres such a thing as too much workplace collaboration - Debut Teamwork makes the dream work, right? Wrong, apparently. According to science, a culture of too much workplace collaboration might prove detrimental to the workers in it. Dont get it twisted, theres nothing more horrible than working in a completely toxic work environment. However, one school of thought suggests that you can go too far the other way and actually be so afraid of conflict that nothing gets done. Is too much workplace collaboration harming the top performers? Whats with this radical new idea all of a sudden? Well, it turns out that the people who typically do the best in a workplace may be held back by an emphasis on collaboration. This is based on a new study recently published in the journal Applied Psychology, featuring an experiment focused on 105 Taiwanese hair salons. Researchers asked managers to share performance reviews for their workers. Then, they asked those workers how collaborative they felt their workplace was and how they felt about their colleagues. Based on the answers they collected, the researchers concluded there was more of a gulf between standout employees and their colleagues in a collaborative environment. The top performers also experienced more negative treatment in the form of belittling and criticism when they were surrounded by co-workers who felt threatened.” In the second part of the study, the authors recruited 284 university students for a team-based problem-solving task. Some were told to focus on cooperation, while others were told to take a more individualised approach. What they saw was more of the same; those who saw the strongest players as a threat were more likely to make nasty comments about them in a more collaborative setting. An argument for arguing So overly collaborative workplaces can create a breeding ground for toxic attitudes and behind-the-back chatter. Does that mean horror of horrors that a bit of confrontation every now and then can be beneficial? Yup, believe it or not. Writing for  Harvard Business Review, Liane Davey  argued that having conflicts in workplace can be a way of pushing everyone toward better ideas and better execution. “Productive conflict creates value,” she said. “If you avoid disagreeing, you leave faulty assumptions unexposed.” The idea here is that a healthy amount of disagreement shows that everybody is advocating for that own roles and department. It ensures that all sides are heard when making a department or company-wide decision. It also gives you a view of the different personalities in the room and how they can help shape a decision. Want to make sure that if you disagree you at least get some benefits out of it? Make sure to speak your mind and encourage other, less confident team members to do the same. And remember, theres a productive way to disagree with people. Articulate your problem in a measured way, support your argument with facts and try and find some common ground. And most of all, dont worry if your workplace culture isnt sunshine and rainbows all the time. Taking a more individualistic approach just might get you out of meetings quicker. Connect with Debut on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for more careers insights.

Career Brand Versus Job Title

Career Brand Versus Job Title Last week I was invited to be part of a panel discussion for a presentation called Overcoming the Fear: Career Strategies for Success in Todays Economy hosted by the Human Resources Association of New York.For many, when they first embark on a job search, they go into the process looking to find a position similar to the one they had last. But the problem with that strategy is that the world is a different place than it was when you accepted that last position.  Its no longer enough to identify yourself by your profession. It doesnt really matter if you are a recruiter,  an investment banker, a mortgage broker, a realtor, or a lawyer. The real question is what skills do you have that todays employers are buying?  Before you jump into your search, review these questions.What do you do that you are good at and enjoy doing?What are you good at but dont enjoy doing?What skills do you have an interest in and aptitude for but need to develop further?Where is the intersection between what you like to do and what current business needs dictate?To gain a better understanding of employers needs start asking these questions at networking events, professional association meetings, and informational interviews.What is the most pressing problem your organization or industry is facing?What skills are in the greatest demand in your current environment?What areas do you wish to build efficiencies in?Through introspection and conversation you can begin to reshape your role and increase the likelihood of  marketing yourself as a candidate that is the solution to an employers needs.To read the thoughts of my colleague and fellow panelist, Jennifer Loftus of Astron Solutions on this topic, check out her  blog post on personal branding  and its role in helping you formulate a career direction. The content is geared towards HR practitioners but has relevance to all professions.

How Do You Write A Resume?

How Do You Write A Resume?Writing a resume can be done by one person or by a group of people, so you may need to put in some effort to achieve success in this area. If you are not good at writing resumes, you can ask for help from professionals who have the ability to write a resume in a way that is unique to your experience. Your resume can really help you get the job you want.A resume can be done by individuals but it can also be written by professionals, so you need to ask for an example or even a work sample. These professionals may also help you improve your skills in writing a resume and assist you in putting it together properly. They will be able to help you focus on what you need in your job search. It is really important to focus on the most important factors in any resume.The first thing you must do is to organize your information. If you have experience working in any industry, you will be able to include this information on your resume. This means that you can add the in formation you are looking for and show how you have moved up through the ranks in your current position. You may also choose to update your education and professional experience on your resume.After you organize your information, you must decide how you want to use it. You must remember that you will be using your resume to make a better impression on potential employers. By organizing the information you put on your resume, you will be able to highlight areas that you think will be useful to them.You must be specific about the experience you have. It is essential that you emphasize the specific experiences you have had in your job. By doing this, your prospective employer will be able to see you as someone who has expertise in your field and who knows what he is doing when it comes to running a business.You must also highlight the accomplishments that are relevant to your specific area of expertise. One mistake that many people make is not putting in enough experience on their resu me. By highlighting this, they make a good impression but do not make a lasting impression. To make sure that your resume really stands out, do not leave anything out, and emphasize your qualifications for the job you are applying for.You can also mention the number of years that you have been employed and the number of previous positions you held. You can include your references in this area. After all, it is important to be able to give references if you do not have references. Other people in your past may be able to vouch for you and provide information about you that may help an employer to hire you.As long as your resume is focused on presenting you as an outstanding reference, it will make the difference between getting the job and not getting the job. That is why you must devote the time to making sure that your resume is eye-catching and appealing. With the right amount of work and dedication, you can write a resume that will make your dream of having a career change into a reality.