The Coolest Advances in Corporate Learning Might Come From the Cannabis Industry
A couple of Harvard grads kick around in finance for a few years before deciding to launch a hip new tech startup of their own. On the surface, the story of Best in Grow cofounders Andrew Duffy (CEO) and Jake Levin (COO) might sound like the story of every tech startup ever. Dig a little deeper, though, and you'll find the tale of this dispensary management software company has a lot...
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The Unlimited PTO Policy Conundrum: How Much Vacation Should You Take When You Can Take All the Vacation You Want?
Unlimited PTO - How Much to Take? Just joined a company that boasts an unlimited PTO policy? Such freedom and flexibility were likely major draws at first. But now that you're an official employee, chances are you're unsure how to handle unlimited vacation time. Should you take full advantage and book a month's holiday in Portugal? Should you play it safe and stick to the traditional two or...
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Science Says Do These 12 Things to Survive Your Toxic Workplace
With the World Health Organization now recognizing burnout as an official medical diagnosis, there's no longer any excuse for working professionals not to take the issue seriously. Burnout can cause serious damage to your mental and physical health — plus it makes you a less productive employee to boot. One of the key causes of burnout is a toxic work environment, in which stress runs...
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Wealth Management for Tech Professionals: What You Need to Know About Restricted Stock and RSUs
Approximately 11.8 million people work in technology in the US today, and these professionals face financial issues and workplace pressures uncommon in other industries. They make unique, high-stakes financial decisions — for example, dealing with stock-based compensation. In Personal Finance for Tech Professionals in Silicon Valley and Beyond, wealth manager Bruce Barton aims to...
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Consistent, Clear, and Painless: How to Manage Employee Offboarding the Right Way
First impressions matter when it comes to new hires. These days, most companies know this, and many provide strong onboarding experiences to help their newest team members get up to speed fast and stick around for the long haul. An employee's final impressions of your company matter just as much, yet comparatively few organizations put the same amount of thought and effort into their...
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5 Tips to Help You Craft a LinkedIn Message Sales Reps Will Respond To
"Account executive," "new business development manager," "account growth manager": No matter what you call your sales representatives, they're the lifeblood of your company. And they're in high demand. In fact, sales reps consistently rank in the top 10 for the most in-demand talent. At the same time, sales reps — especially those in medical sales — aren't particularly easy to...
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How to Start a Side Hustle Without Making Your Boss Angry
Whether you're interested in earning more money, gaining valuable job experience, or pursuing a passion, starting a side hustle can be a great way to achieve your goals. You can conduct your side hustle on your own time, and it offers a low-commitment opportunity to try something new. Starting a side hustle can even be good for your day job. Your boss may be impressed by your proactive,...
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Battling Burnout: Is It a Toxic Work Environment, or Your Own Bad Habits?
The unceasing inner drive to "do more" and "achieve more" can have a significant impact on your health, your family, and your career. However, burnout is often a subtle process, and even the brightest people may be unable to identify the telltale signs of its onset until it is too late. When we talk of burnout, we often attribute it to our work environments. In reality, burnout is caused...
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Are Gig Workers Considered Contractors After All? What On-Demand Businesses Must Know:
In what could be a landmark decision for the future of the gig economy, the Department of Labor (DOL) has classified the workers of an anonymous "virtual marketplace" company as independent contractors, not employees. A complete 180 from the DOL's previous guidance on gig workers, this opinion came in response to an attorney requesting guidance on behalf of the unnamed company, keen to avoid...
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No More Wavering: Do These 3 Things to Become a Better Decision-Maker
Article by Karima Mariama-Arthur Every day, we face challenging situations we must confront. These situations require us to make certain choices, and those choices aren't always easy. However, our decisions are the foundations of our lives. If you want to create a life you love, it makes sense to try to make the best decisions possible, even when they're hard. Unfortunately, we...
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Company Culture Is Like Water: Finding the Right Employee-Employer Fit
Employees who fit well within an organization are more satisfied, loyal, and committed. They also perform better and experience less stress, research has repeatedly confirmed. When there is a strong culture fit between an employee and their employer, that employee is also more likely to stick around for the long haul — very good news, considering turnover can cost an organization up to 200...
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Are Restaurant Workers the Talent Market's Best-Kept Secret?
The US job market is the healthiest it has been in a generation, with the unemployment rate falling to its lowest point in 50 years. While this is great news for the economy, the shortage of available talent leaves many employers desperate to fill jobs. Some find it necessary to stray from their typical hiring protocols, increasing pay, training more entry-level workers, and loosening...
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HR Jobs Are Changing – and So Are Their Salaries
Due to the increased integration of and reliance on technology, every part of a business is changing, and that includes HR. Indeed, HR has evolved immensely over the past decade. Technological advancement has spurred a wave of new HR jobs, such as the "chief people officer" and the emergence of "people" teams. Rebranded and refreshed, these jobs do not represent mere title changes, but...
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The Miracle-Minded Manager: Whatever Happened to Face-to-Face Recruiting and Real-Time Hiring?
Miracle-Minded Manager: A Modern Day Parable About How to Apply A Course in Miracles in Business, by "zentrepreneur" and mindful leadership expert John J. Murphy, traces the story of Jack MacDonald in order to teach readers how to get out of their own way by shifting their thinking to see life — and themselves — very differently. Jack, president of a major business unit at TYPCO...
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You Can't Afford to Be Boring: 3 Best Practices for Bridging Engagement and Compliance
With unemployment rates at historic lows and employees willing to quit their jobs for better opportunities, it's no wonder employee engagement has become a major talking point for executives. While engagement is at its highest level since Gallup started tracking it in 2000, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Employee engagement is heavily influenced by both specific perks...
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5 Things Everyone in the Workforce Needs to Know About Medicare
Employers and employees may be at odds with regard to how old is too old to be working. According to a 2018 report by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, employers see age 70 as the cutoff, whereas employees cited 75 as a solid retirement age. No matter your personal opinions, the reality is there are hundreds of thousands of workers ages 70, 75, and even 85 and up in the...
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#ZohoRecruitChat Roundup: the Candidate Experience, the Rise of the Machines, and the Future of Recruiting
Yesterday, applicant tracking system Zoho Recruit sponsored a fascinating tweetchat on recruiting in the age of artificial intelligence and automation. Participants included our own Recruiter.com CEO Miles Jennings (@milesj), as well as other industry experts like Genesys Talent CEO Carla M. Tibbitts (@CarlaTibbits), CV-Library Founder and CEO Lee Biggins (@LeeBiggins), UK Recruiter...
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What Civilian Organizations Can Learn From the Military About Flexible Work
The world of work is changing rapidly, and an employer's desire — as well as its capacity— to keep pace may affect its ability to retain quality employees. Flexible work arrangements are becoming more common, with more than half of employers offering some type of flexible option to workers, according to SHRM. Moreover, SHRM also found that 55 percent of employees cite workplace...
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The 5 Skills Every Recruiter Needs to Master
Recruiters are the beginning of every great team. They scour talent pools to find organizations the perfect A players according to the company's needs. Without a stellar team of recruiters, you wouldn't have the top-level executives, leaders, and employees your organization depends on to succeed. In today's world, being a recruiter is one of the hardest jobs out there. There are more open...
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How to Keep Your Job If You Have to You Go to Rehab: Understanding the FMLA
Contrary to the common stereotype of the strung-out addict living under a highway overpass, drug and alcohol addiction more often than not afflict full-time members of America's workforce. In fact, most adults with substance use disorders in this country are employed full-time, according to a 2014 report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The...
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A Surefire Way to Lose the Candidates You Want: Going Slow When You Should Go Fast
It's a situation that plays out thousands of time each day in the corporate world. It goes something like this: Hiring Manager: Hi, Rick. It's Debra Jones. I'm calling to say I'm disappointed we have not seen any new candidates from you in a while. We need to get somebody ASAP! Recruiter: Hi, Debra. I'm glad you called. I've been wanting to follow up from the call I placed to you last...
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The Negative Impact That Growing Up Digital Has Had on Communication
Millennials have a stronger connection with technology than any previous generation. It makes sense that they would: They grew up alongside the internet and smartphones. Experts in all things digital, millennials have certain advantages when adopting and deploying the latest workplace technologies to drive results. However, the millennial affinity for technology may also be the source of...
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Escaping the Cult of Busy: You Don't Have to Sacrifice Your Well-Being to Be Successful
"Thirty hours of working and still going strong," the young copywriter typed and then went back to work. Within hours, she would lapse into a coma and die soon after. That final tweet rang out loudly to those who study workplace trends. Working all hours of the night has become a point of pride for many, but the consequences of such practices may be more severe than we...
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3 Innocent Ways You Put Your Employees in Danger
Today, workplace cultures are inundated with alcohol. Coworking spaces offer "perks" like beer on tap, companies tout flashy open-bar holiday parties, and bosses reward direct reports with happy hours and free drinks. Workplace drinking has become the norm. However, there's a darker side to the growing acceptance of alcohol as a common workplace occurrence. Alcohol is the most regularly...
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To Fill Tech Talent Gaps, Recruiters Must Seek Digital Natives and Digital Newcomers Alike
It's an interesting time to hire technology workers. Soon, recruiters will encounter two very different types of applicants for the tech-related jobs they're tasked to fill. It might seem obvious that Generation Z applicants — or "digital natives" — are the best fit for tech positions. Gen. Z-ers have been exposed to technology their entire lives, with many gaining experience with...
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#Hiring103: Picking the Perfect Staff Is the Secret Ingredient
"You had me at hello." Picture this: You're sitting in front of your screen, the clock ticking and your fingers glued to your keyboard. You're pressed for time, and you need to close a job opening in the next couple of days. You receive an email containing a great cover letter and the resume of someone who perfectly matches your candidate skill score. A couple of calls, a thread of emails,...
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Gen. Z Is Challenging the Status Quo When It Comes to Pay Transparency
When millennials began to enter the labor market nearly two decades ago, they turned the corporate world upside down. With the oldest millennials now nearing 40, it's time for organizations to prepare for a new population to upend work culture once again: Generation Z. Defined by the Pew Research Center as those born between 1997 and 2012, Gen. Z-ers were raised in the age of the...
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11 Effective Ways to Stay on Top of Your Hiring Process
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Today's Question: Staying on top of the job market can be tricky in a small company. A lot of people have to wear multiple hats. How do you stay on top of the hiring process and prevent it from getting constantly put on the back burner when competing priorities arise? The...
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The Quantum Reality Approach to Job Searching: Using 'the Field' to Land the Right Offer
A recruiting manager has narrowed the selection process to two individuals with equal expertise: One is a pleasant person who is professional but whose authentic energy and enthusiasm are low, and the second individual has high energy and is clearly enthused about the prospect of working for the growing company and contributing to the success of the manager. Which person do you think the...
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The Agency's Dilemma: Preparing for a Modern Workforce
Pew Research Center estimates the global population of people 65 and older will triple from 531 million in 2010 to 1.5 billion in 2050. As the average age of all people increases, so will the average age of the workforce. Retirement ages are climbing, and as the age gap between the most senior workers and the newest hires widens, workplace dynamics will change. In fact, we are already...
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The Big Data Curse: Is TA Tech Actually Making Recruiters' Jobs Harder?
Sometimes, the issues that plague people in talent acquisition (TA) are unavoidable and really, really hard to solve. But there's one problem — one of the most common TA challenges of all — that we brought on ourselves. In fact, talent acquisition technology created the issue in the first place. I'm talking about the ever-ballooning times to hire that most if not all TA pros...
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Work/Life Balance Doesn't Mean You Can't Be Friends With Your Coworkers
"Work/life balance" is the buzz phrase of the moment, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Americans are notoriously overworked, and we could all use more time for our personal lives. However, it can be easy to go too far with work/life balance. Some workers end up erecting impenetrable walls between their personal and professional lives. Boundaries are important, of course, but problems...
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Welcome to the Job Market, New Grad! Here's What You Need to Look for in Your First Job:
As you don your cap and gown, you may feel anxious about launching your post-graduation career. Do not despair. You're not alone. In fact, 67 percent of college students graduate without a full-time job lined up. Some encouraging news is that employers plan to hire nearly 11 percent more graduates from the class of 2019 than they did from the class of 2018. Today's strong labor market...
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Own It, See It, Change It: The 3-Step Plan for Personal and Professional Success
Success isn't something that happens to you; it's something you create. In the years during which I went from a part-time employee to a sales executive for a company doing more than $3 billion in sales, I learned that personal success is not some unattainable, mysterious thing. It is ours to gain, to lose, and to share. Let me show you exactly how to take the reigns and make success work...
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Everyone Faces Setbacks — Adopt a Resilience Regimen Today
Setbacks are an unavoidable part of life, especially in your career. If you don't learn to deal with them properly, you may end up with a lot of regret — and you may even make the setback harder to overcome. When it comes to setbacks, the sooner we learn to deal with them, the better. Whether a setback is personal or professional, one thing is certain: Building resilience is critical...
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How to Handle Candidates in the Red Zone: The Danger of the Counteroffer
You have found the perfect candidate. Even better, they have successfully run the gauntlet and passed all the tests. Better still, they have received and accepted an offer. You are home free. Placement made, right? Think again. The final yards of the recruiting process can be the hardest. The war for talent today is fiercer than ever. If you love a candidate, chances are the candidate's...
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Creativity Can Be Taught: How Flexible, Social Learning Can Foster a More Innovative Workforce
LinkedIn recently analyzed the profiles of users who were getting hired at the highest rates to identify the top skills companies are looking for in prospective candidates this year. One of the most sought-after skills of all, according to the analysis, is creativity. While creativity is in high demand, it's also in relatively low supply. Finding creative types can be a challenge, but...
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#Hiring102: Building Effective Teams Is an Art
"Elementary, my dear Watson." Time and again, recruitment gurus have stressed the need to have a hiring process that is inclusive, unbiased, and focused on ensuring a potential candidate fits right into the company's culture. But how do you measure the effectiveness of a process like this? Well, two factors determine its success or failure: One is a new hire's progress at a company,...
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Working Vacations Don't Have to Stink
When it comes to vacations, Spain knows how to do it big: The average Spanish worker get 40 paid vacation days. Americans, unfortunately, fall on the other end of the spectrum. We're terrible at getting away from work, with the average US worker only receiving a measly 10 paid days off every year. On the surface, that may sound like good news for our employers: We Americans are...
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Automate More: How Tech Can Help HR Pros Reach Their Full Potential
HR professionals are one of a kind. Working in a fast-paced field, these pros are responsible for seeking new and innovative solutions to develop employees' skills, improve performance, and boost productivity. Amid all that, when performance issues occur, it's the role of HR to handle the situation the right way, in a timely manner and without complication. Succeeding in an HR role...
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Forget Staying Calm — Here's How to Be a Dynamic, Electric, and Passionate Public Speaker
Does the thought of public speaking make your heart leap — in terror? What happens next? Do you judge yourself for being nervous? Do you feel inadequate to play the role of "speaker"? Do you wish you could figure out how the heck to just get it over with? I promise you that you are not alone. Anticipating being seen and heard can feel very vulnerable, and our insecurities often jump...
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Why Mentoring Is the Key to Achieving Your Career Goals
Earlier in my career, I asked myself, "What am I doing that is getting in the way of me reaching my goal as a leader?" I posed that question to a colleague I respected, who responded, "Have you ever asked anyone for help?" That simple question made a huge impact on me. Even if you've never been involved in a formal mentoring program, you've had mentors along the way. A teacher, a...
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HR as a Key Innovator: 3 Strategies to Create a High-Performing Company Culture
In a way, your company's culture is the personality of your organization. Just like any good personality, it should run deep. That means your culture should extend beyond casual dress codes, office perks, and paying lip service to fluffy initiatives like "no jerks allowed" policies. For workers of all ages, company culture is a major determining factor in employment choices. Because of...
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Company Culture Is an Inside-Out Job: Why Your Culture's Strength and Well-Being Start With You
In my work in leadership and culture, I find people often think that culture is created "out there." They view culture as something outside of themselves over which they have no control. For many, culture is something to be fixed, something that makes people quit or convinces them to stay, and even something that can be improved with foosball tables, free meals, and karaoke...
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Even Entrepreneurs Need Performance Reviews: 5 Tips for Conducting a Self-Evaluation as an Independent Professional
Performance reviews are a useful way for managers to evaluate employee achievement, growth, and goals. While this process may typically be associated with a traditional work arrangement, that doesn't mean self-employed business owners or freelancers can't reap the benefits for themselves. Self-evaluation is important for both personal and professional growth, and this valuable tool can even...
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Is the Resume Objective Statement Truly Dead?
You've almost certainly heard the news: The resume objective statement is dead. It is old-fashioned, of little value, and should absolutely always be replaced with a professional summary. There's good reason for this sentiment: The traditional objective focuses on you, your goals, your needs, and your aspirations. Employers today are less interested in what you're hoping to gain from a...
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How to Cover the Unexpected Costs of Your New Job
For Americans, starting a new job is a common occurrence. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, latter-day boomers — those born between 1957 and 1964 — held an average of 12 jobs by the time they were 50, with almost half of those occurring before they even hit 25. Each new start is an exciting time of clean slates and chances to excel; you may even score a new title, a pay...
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What's the Difference Between Getting Fired and Getting Laid Off?
Losing your job is emotionally taxing no matter how it happens. However, it's important not to let the shock of the news cloud your understanding of what is happening. Getting laid off and getting fired are two very different things, and each can impact you and the future of your career in different ways. An employer may not always be clear about the terms under which they have decided to...
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