Your Shot: Finding a Career When You're Young (Or Not), Scrappy, and Hungry
Sitting in a Broadway theater watching the amazing Hamilton, I noticed a catchy line sung by our eponymous hero: "I'm young, scrappy, and hungry, and I'm not throwing away my shot." Thinking about this line later, it reminded me of the many students I've had who fit the bill. They were young (college students), scrappy (about to graduate), and hungry (in need of a job). We'll get to the...
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How Modern HR Technology Makes a Difference in Finding and Retaining Great Employees
Finding and keeping great employees is a challenge. In fact, according to McKinsey, 82 percent of business leaders don't believe their companies recruit highly talented people; among those who do believe they recruit top talent, only 7 percent believe they can retain these employees. How do you recognize which candidates in the employment market will become long-term A players? What...
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Closing the Culture Gap: What Your Employees Want May Not Be What You Deliver
There is plenty of water cooler chat about organizational culture these days, but this important topic still finds itself at the bottom of the boardroom agenda. This is a risky oversight, as cultural time bombs are ticking away in many organizations. A recent survey from PwC assessing worker attitudes in 50 countries found that "employees feel less positive about their workplace cultures...
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Can Your Myers-Briggs Type Help You Find Well-Being at Work?
In my writings and presentations, I drive home the importance of finding what you love to do and then doing all you can to make that your career. This, however, is a journey that will involve a few stops along the way, during which it is critical to keep up your spirits. As you continue in your career exploration, how can you also honor your well-being throughout that journey? More fully...
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Keep the Trendy Perks — Your Employees Would Rather You Spend the Money on Tech That Works
From communication to organization, in-office comfort to customer service, advances in tech are taking our work live to new levels of efficiency. Of course, new tech can also be a disruption if you don't know how to leverage it properly. Employers would do well to study the emerging trends sweeping across workplaces in every sector. That way, they'll be better positioned to adopt new...
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How to Plan a Budget as a Side Hustler
If you're an established professional with a full-time job but you've got that entrepreneurial itch, you may have considered (or started) a side hustle that puts your passions to work. But what do you do with the cash that flows into your account each month, especially if it's erratic and unpredictable? Whether you're taking advantage of websites that pay you to shop, reselling items online,...
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Leaving Is Easy — Keeping Employees on Board Is Hard: 4 Retention Tips for a Tight Talent Market
In today's tight talent market, with the US unemployment rate recently hitting a 49-year low, unhappy employees can simply switch jobs without much hassle. However, turnover is still extremely costly for the organization, making employee retention as important as ever. Since I cofounded BIA nearly 20 years ago, it has been a priority of mine to create and maintain an environment where...
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The 6 Mindset Principles of Successful People
Article by Julian Hayes The path to accomplishing your biggest dreams and goals has never been clearer, thanks to the wealth of information on personal and professional success now available. However, just because the price of admission to the game has decreased, that doesn't mean the journey will be a cakewalk. That said, it's also not quantum physics. In reality, all that separates...
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Mask Off: 5 Types of Imposter Syndrome and How to Overcome Them
You pulled it off. You got that major project finished under budget and on time. Now, your teammates and your manager are slapping your back and showering you with praise. But you can't enjoy it. The only thing on your mind is: "Just wait until they find out it was all luck. The next project — that's the one I'll fail. And then they'll see. I'm not as good as they think I am." Sound...
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As the Net Promoter Score Falls From Grace, So Does the Employee Net Promoter Score
This year has been the Net Promoter Score's (NPS) moment in the shade. The popular metric for measuring customer satisfaction got a drubbing this May from the Wall Street Journal, which noted that while corporate America may be obsessed with the NPS — often using it to determine bonuses and guide investment decisions — the metric's accuracy is "dubious." Forbes, too, chimed in with an...
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Why Every Company Should Write Its Own Obituary
Why work? The reasonable response might once have been "to make money," and for some that's still true. But as our economy has evolved and work options have proliferated, the answer has changed for a growing majority of people. These days, many of us want more than just a paycheck. To find, keep, and motivate great talent, businesses leaders must identify and share with the world why...
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3 Ways to Own Your Anxiety in the Office
What's even more important than showing up to work is how you show up to work. How we show up ultimately dictates our attitudes in meetings, our contributions, and how we feel after the workday has come to an end. What's the point of being there if you're not actually there or you are so anxious that it's a miserable experience? The following three ways to own your anxiety in your office...
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For Business Success, Be Innovative, Not Satisfied
In 2008, when the Great Recession hit, my recruiting business quickly began to shrink. It took me years to recover. In the process, I came to realize that my satisfaction had created complacency. My business model had been working, and I was following the adage, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" This satisfaction practically predicted eventual failure. In the disruptive world of business,...
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4 Ways to Promote Inclusivity in the Workplace Beyond Pride Month
Now that June is over, organizations and brands are taking down the flags and putting away the pride paraphernalia until next summer. That leaves many LGBTQ+ employees to wonder, "Okay — so what's next? It's July and I'm still gay (and maybe still not out at work). I still don't have the same rights as some of my colleagues. What are we going to do to keep the conversation...
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The Case for Hiring Candidates With Felony Convictions
The thought of employing individuals with felony convictions is enough to make most CEOs wring their hands. You can hardly blame them. Many of these people have done bad things in the past. Hiring them is a noble endeavor, but what if our worst fears come true? As it turns out, those fears may be overblown. Just look at those businesses that already hire large numbers of people with...
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In Fiverr We Trust? Why Freelancers Should Beware of Relying Too Heavily on a Single Marketplace
Imagine that, one day, you wake up to find the freelance platform you rely on to make a living has simply disappeared. Your work history, clients, portfolio, contracts, and reviews are gone, just like that. What now? Fiverr, Upwork, and similar platforms may seem like titanic institutions that are too big to fail, but what if they did? What would that mean for the countless freelancers who...
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Most Interviewers Are Bad — and That's Why You Keep Making Bad Hiring Decisions
Talent makes or breaks an organization. You've heard that before — but that doesn't help anybody if a bad hire has already been made. Bad hires mean nothing but trouble. Of course, bad hires lead to wasted money. In terms of manpower, onboarding, and training costs, you've probably spent thousands of dollars to fill this role, and now it turns out the person sitting in the seat isn't the...
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4 Ways to Stop Telling Employees You Care and Start Showing Them
Care in the workplace isn't any different from self-care, empathy, or supporting a loved one — and the impact is significant. A 2019 study by the Limeade Institute found that when an employee feels their organization cares about them as an individual, they're nine times more likely to stay at the company for three or more years, twice as likely to be engaged at work, and 10 times more...
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10 Effective Technologies to Make Recruiting Easier
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Today's Question: What tech has helped you the most in your recruiting and talent management, and why has it been so effective? The answers below are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization of the world's most successful young entrepreneurs....
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The Secret to Higher Retention: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Retention is difficult, often because the key drivers that keep employees from leaving can be hard to uncover. Even when it seems like every need is met — even when employees earn competitive salaries, engage in challenging work, and collaborate with supportive team members — turnover can be a problem. But perhaps the mystery of retention is not as deep as it seems. The psychological...
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Cash Bonuses Won't Get Your Employees Motivated — But Experiential Rewards Might
We all want motivated, loyal, and productive employees. We want our workers to go the extra mile, to genuinely care about their roles, and to strive continuously to improve. We also know that a great way to incentivize and empower our employees to meet these expectations is to provide them with the right rewards. But do we really know what our employees want when it comes to...
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8 Things to Accomplish During Your Company's Summer Slowdown
After months of navigating the hard slog, it can be tempting to kick back and coast when your workload wanes during the inevitable summer slowdown. Taking steps to avoid burnout is all well and good, but is doing the bare minimum really the best use of your time in this quiet season? The truth is, these slow weeks virtually free of meetings and deadlines present a great opportunity to...
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Burnout Is Now an Official Diagnosis — and Your Company Cannot Afford to Ignore It
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified burnout as an official "occupational phenomenon." While that doesn't mean burnout is a medical condition, it does mean WHO sees burnout as a specific syndrome above and beyond simply feeling tired after work. According to WHO, burnout is characterized by exhaustion, feelings of mental distance and/or cynicism toward one's job, and...
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Get Personal: How to Give Employees the Holistic Wellness Benefits They Crave
Nearly half of all American workplaces offer some kind of health or wellness program to employees, according to research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health. This is encouraging news, but simply having a wellness program is not, in and of itself, enough. Organizations must ensure their wellness programs support employee well-being...
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14 Helpful Hints to Streamline Your Hiring Process
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Today's Question: What technology or personal system do you use to streamline the hiring process? How does it help? The answers below are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization of the world's most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members...
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Get Your Tech Employees Involved in the Process — Plus 2 Other Tips to Help You Hire More Tech Talent
Tech positions are some of the most in-demand roles, with 5 million IT jobs expected to be added to the global market by 2027. Filling these jobs, however, is not easy. By some estimates, the average conversion rate from resume shortlisting to offer is a paltry 2-4 percent for tech roles. The competition for tech talent is immense, and recruiters are having a difficult time getting...
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Are You Still Hiring Like It's 2009?
Many small and mid-sized businesses are struggling to stay fully staffed. With unemployment under 4 percent, the talent market is as competitive as it has been in 50 years — but unfortunately, many small businesses haven't updated their hiring procedures in a decade. In fact, businesses often approach the talent market as if it were still the height of the Great Recession, when...
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3 Strategies to Manage Your Time and Maximize Your Results
Article by Karima Mariama-Arthur Time is a nonnegotiable, nonrenewable resource. Somehow, we all seem to forget this, especially when we become overwhelmed. However, if you learn to remove distractions and prioritize important tasks, you can do more with your time — and live a much happier life, too. Consider this: Do you proactively engage in your day or simply fall into various...
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13 Common Hiring Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Today's Question: What is a common mistake companies make during the hiring process? What are some specific things they can do to correct or avoid this misstep? The answers below are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization of the world's...
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Turning Interns Into New Hires: 7 Key Tips That Work
It is getting more challenging to engage great intern talent, so it is important for companies to put their best feet forward during the entire process. Although an employer is the one who technically interviews (and hires) the student for their internship, savvy young learners will also be examining the organization during the duration of their assignment. "Could this really be my home...
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Research Says You Might Be Scared of New Recruiting Trends and Tools
Companies thrive on innovation — not only to ensure their products and services are on the cutting edge, but also to attract top talent. Job seekers are drawn to companies that use the latest technology trends and tools because they know these employers will give them the resources they need to do their best work. Yet when it comes to recruiting technology, companies are often reluctant...
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The Outplacement Primer: Where, Why, and How Companies Are Using Outplacement
If you're unfamiliar with the term "outplacement," you probably know it by one of its other names, like "career transition assistance," "offboarding support," or "redeployment." The monikers are various but the service is ultimately the same: helping employees find new jobs or career paths, typically after a layoff or termination. In the age of unhappy ex-employees leaving scathing...
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What You Really Want: How to Test-Drive Your Passion
When I was growing up, the world wasn't as rife with career advice as it is today. Back then, it really amounted to this: Get a job! So I did. Actually, I got two jobs. If making some money was good, making more was better, right? In the past few decades, we have been hit with an avalanche of career how-tos. It's an exciting development, but it can be difficult to sift through all the...
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Back-Office Jobs Are Disappearing Fast — But What Will Replace Them?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the fastest-disappearing office jobs in the US include typists (projected to decline by 33.1 percent by 2026), computer operators (22.8 percent), and data-entry keyers (21.2 percent). As automation takes over many common office functions, demand for jobs like administrative assistants, office machine operators, and mail sorters is also...
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Connecting People: Why Coworking Spaces Appeal to Modern Workers
The days of cubicles are numbered. They're quickly being replaced by a more modern floor plan — the coworking space. You've probably heard about the rise of coworking spaces. Perhaps you harbor a fondness for them. Those of you who think coworking spaces are nothing more than a flashy, overrated fad, think again. These open work environments have benefits that transcend their perceived...
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Going for the Gold (or Platinum): 3 High-Performing Recruiters Share Their Secrets to Success
Recruiting isn't for the faint of heart — especially not in the current economic climate. Unemployment rates are at historic lows and job openings are at a historic high, a deadly combination for recruiting pros. How do you put the right candidate in the right seat when talent is so scarce and the openings are so abundant? It may seem an impossible feat, but some recruiters can still...
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To Find the Perfect Candidate, Ask These 12 Questions in Every Interview
Hiring the most suitable person for a role can be tricky, to say the least. Crafting a perfect job post to attract qualified talent in the labor market is only the beginning. From there, you still have to market the role in the right channels, sift through endless resumes, and identify top contenders. But perhaps the most crucial component of the whole recruiting process is the interview....
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The Repercussions of Not Outsourcing Workplace Investigations: Two Case Studies
As misconduct scandals involving high-profile persons within blue-chip organizations continue to proliferate, companies are scrambling to keep up with the rapidly changing ideas around how to handle workplace misconduct. Whereas misconduct investigations were once the work of low- or mid-level HR generalists, they now demand much higher degrees of attention, care, and independence....
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Purposes Don't Have to Be Lofty: 4 Ways to Discover Your Calling
Over the past 20 years, I have interviewed thousands of incredibly successful individuals — their success being why I, as a headhunter, was talking to them in the first place. Most of these successful individuals were unsatisfied in their work — which, of course, was why they were talking to me, a headhunter. You might think I was interviewing people who were working soulless jobs in...
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3 Ways to Re-Energize Employees in the Age of Burnout
In corporate America, evolutionary change at revolutionary speed is becoming the norm, and workers are clearly feeling the brunt of these tectonic shifts. Political strife, international trade disputes, and angst over a particular industry's or company's health are weighing heavily on workers' minds. Couple these concerns with a nonstop workload, demanding deliverables, and tight budget...
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5 Metrics That Tell You Whether Your Recruitment Marketing Strategy Works
In today's hyper-competitive job market, it is extremely difficult for a company to stand out without a strong recruitment marketing strategy. But how do you know whether your recruitment marketing campaigns are paying off? With data, of course! Data, in this case, means recruitment metrics. Metrics are the key to showing you where the ROI is, where the budget is being wasted, and...
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Getting Ghosted by Applicants? Take These 3 Steps to Build a Better Recruiting Process
While the concept originated in the dating scene, ghosting — the act of going dark with no explanation — has become widespread in professional realms. Candidates are suddenly dropping out of recruitment pipelines without a word, simply refusing to respond to recruiters' and employers' messages. Perhaps this development should not be surprising. Unemployment is low and employment...
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The 2020 Recession: What It Means for Recruiters
It has been more than 10 years since the Great Recession of 2008, and talk about another recession in 2020 is only getting louder. External recruiters should be especially alert to this chatter, as they can be seriously hurt by a decline in job postings. However, a possible recession can also present an opportunity for recruiters. Recruiting may be even more important in a dire economy...
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Are You Too Ambitious? How to Keep Your Employee Goals High Yet Attainable
Managers must walk a fine line when setting employee goals. Aggressive stretch goals can produce high rewards for both the company and the employee when achieved. When team members reach a goal into which they have all poured significant time and effort, they feel inspired and motivated to take on even more new challenges. The confidence boost unites the team, strengthening bonds between...
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'We're Not All the Same': A Former Staffing Firm Leader Offers a Peek Behind the VMS/MSP Curtain
I recently had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with my friend Mindy Milligan, senior program manager at healthcare workforce solutions provider Qualivis. Mindy and I met several years ago during her time as director of nursing services for a staffing firm in South Carolina. We bonded quickly over our passion for the healthcare staffing industry and our shared desire to create a...
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The Power of Paid Family Leave: Doing More for the Families in Small Businesses
Having a child irrevocably changes your life. I don't have any of my own, but you don't need to be a parent to know that having a child is a huge time commitment, especially for the first year. Yet for the employees of millions of companies across the US, a parent could have a child on Friday and be expected to report to work at 9 a.m. on Monday. Currently, only 41 percent of employers...
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Displaced Workers: 3 Ways to Attract and Retain This Unique Talent Pool
The 2018 "Displaced Workers Summary" from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) confirms displacement has been a major issue for Americans in recent years. The BLS defines "displaced workers" as "persons 20 years of age and over who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished."...
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Politics and the Workplace: How to Hire and Get Hired in an Increasingly Polarized World
With the 2020 presidential election around the corner and campaign season in full swing, politics is all around us — even outside of political contests. Consistent with empirical research from political science scholars, a 2014 Pew Research Center report found that the United States has become increasingly politically polarized over the last two decades. More disconcertingly, Pew also...
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