How to Make the Right Hire: Culture Fit 101
Hiring a new employee is a gamble. While resumes and interviews can give you a decent understanding of who a candidate is and how they may perform, there is no way to predict with 100 percent certainty which candidates will succeed if hired. And it doesn't help that candidates always ensure to put their best feet forward during the hiring process, doing everything they can to conceal their...
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How to Continuously Develop Your Employees
In today's market, one could argue that training and developing an existing employee that already works great as one of your team is more valuable than hiring one of the industry's top talent. In fact, PeopleKeep quotes that "every time a business replaces a salaried employee, it costs 6 to 9 months' salary on average." and "Frequent voluntary turnover has a negative impact on employee...
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Understanding Human Error: Why Data Security Is Critical in Hiring
Despite all the recent hype about the "artificial intelligence revolution," the mass automation of jobs is still a thing of the future. We may live in a digital world, but most of our employees are still human — and this means they are capable of human error when it comes to data security. Today, employee negligence is the leading cause of data breaches at small and medium-sized...
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Not Sure Which Skills to Endorse? Ask the Recipient
By now, the debate over endorsements and recommendations on LinkedIn is subsiding — at least I hope so. I know on which side I stand. To me, recommendations have more merit. They require more knowledge of the person being recommended, and it takes a bit of courage to ask for a recommendation from someone. Endorsements, on the other hand, can require very little to no knowledge of the...
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Fight the Summer Slump and Boost Business Productivity
When you consider that about one-third of American adults take some sort of vacation each summer, it's no surprise that organizational productivity takes a significant dip during the warmer months. No company can keep production dialed up to the max when one-third of its employees are sunning on the beach in Half Moon Bay, Hilton Head, or Honduras. But it's not just the loss of bodies that...
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4 Common Interview Tools — and How to Prepare for Them
My daughter recently applied for a teaching position, which she landed after one interview. This wasn't the surprising part. What was surprising is that she didn't meet with anyone in person during the entire process. She was hired based on a video interview. Has the hiring process evolved to the point where employers can determine after one video interview that they've found the best...
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A New Generation of ATSs Makes It Easy to Handle Recruiting Entirely in House
If you feel overwhelmed by your recruiting process, rest assured you are not the only one. With dozens of job boards to choose from and countless professional profiles of qualified candidates to sift through, even the most experienced recruiter can have a hard time navigating the hiring process. It's no surprise that many companies are turning to outside recruiters for help in this...
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You Probably Aren't as Good at Critical Thinking as You Think
From national politicians to our high school acquaintances on Facebook, many of the people we encounter every day spread fake news stories, pseudoscience, or the latest scam without batting an eye. The ability to determine whether or not this information is false is called critical thinking — and it's in high demand in today's workforce. Unfortunately, it's also in short...
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Wage Theft Is Real, But Time Tracking Isn't the Problem
Some people call it "wage theft," some call it "time theft." What's important isn't the name, but the act: companies not paying employees for all the time they've worked. This problem has been in the news a lot lately. The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and Elizabeth Tippett of the University of Oregon both released studies on the subject this year, which were notably covered on NPR and...
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Could the Data Scientist Shortage Be the Career Opportunity of Your Dreams?
By some estimates, the demand for data science talent in the employment market is outstripping the supply by 50 percent. While that's bad news for employers, it's potentially great news for students wondering about their career paths and established professionals looking to make a change. Data scientists are some of the most well-paid professionals, with the median salary for a...
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It's Summer! How Are You Going to Use Your Vacation Time?
A good vacation can be one of the most relaxing things you can do for yourself. Whether you prefer the beach, camping, or grilling out in your backyard, down time is something we all need. Unfortunately, we don't all get this much-needed time to relax. In the United States, companies are not required to offer a minimum amount of vacaction time to workers. According to the Center for...
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The Introverted Interview: Making It a Success
Can you imagine showing up at an interview and not saying a word? Sure, a lot may be going on in your head, but not sharing any of it because you want to ensure you only share your best thoughts would be a disaster during an interview. For those of us with a preference for introversion, this is our natural inclination: keep what is going on inside our heads to ourselves. However, most...
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How to Find a Mentor Who Can Help You Drive Rapid Career Growth
You hear it all the time from career gurus: "Find a great mentor." But that's easier said than done. And even if you do find one, how do you know for sure they can help you grow your career? You certainly don't want to find an unsuitable mentor, as this will have the opposite effect — damaging your career instead of supporting your success. In this guide, I offer a step-by-step...
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How to Break Down Silos Between Recruiting, Marketing, and Everyone Else
While silos may still serve a purpose in agriculture, in the corporate world, we're constantly being encouraged to knock them down. The phrase "operating in a silo" has become a business catchphrase over the past decade, typically referring to different departments within the same company that don't interact with each other. The rise of technology, social media, online brands, and the...
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How to Use Data Science and CRMs to Scale Your Recruiting Agency
The recruiting landscape has changed considerably over the years, and it's going to continue evolving as applicant tracking systems (ATSs) and social platforms develop further. Yet for many companies, the recruiting process itself remains the same as it ever was — or it has grown worse, bogged down by increasingly time-consuming processes. According to a CEB survey, the time...
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White Hat? Blue Hat? How to Make (Legal) Money as a Hacker
The average pop cultural image of a hacker is a shadowy figure maliciously breaching systems and selling your credit card info on the dark web. (See above.) It's an understandable representation, given all the high-profile hacks we've experienced recently, but it's not an entirely accurate one. The hackers who steal your identity and sell it to the highest bidder are what we call "black...
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How to Diversify Your Workforce Without Being an Accidental Bigot
Diversity in the workforce has become a must-have. Consumers demand that the brands they support have workforces that reflect their consumer bases. Companies with diverse employee pools are more financially sound, more innovative, and more productive. The bottom line benefits are obvious — yet even so, recruiting initiatives at many companies still fail to include methods that appeal to...
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You Have Blind Spots: How to Find Them and Take Action
Like drivers barreling down the road, we all have blind spots — those tricky spots you can't see when only looking straight ahead. At work, it is critical to figure out if you have any blind spots, as they can impact your effectiveness. As the term implies, they are a tough developmental areas to tackle — because we don't know what they are! To determine your blind spots, you'll...
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How Can I Develop My Employees for Leadership? 5 Remarkable Ways to Make It Happen:
You're already aware that any company needs amazing leadership to succeed. With baby boomers retiring in droves, you are also keenly attuned to the fact that employee development and succession planning are key to ensuring your company always has a stock of great leaders on hand. But in our ever-changing and fast-paced business world, it can be hard to craft effective leadership...
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Hiring Programmers: Three Top Tips for Success
It's estimated that there are some five job openings available for every one programmer on the market. In a situation like that, it's important to know what kind of programmer you really want and to make sure he/she knows about your great opportunities among so many interesting others that are out there. Here are three tips for hiring programmers to help you assess and land the best...
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As Corporate Leaders Get Younger, L&D Programs Must Adapt
The ranks of corporate leadership are undergoing a generational shift, and new and existing corporate leaders must develop new skill sets if their organizations are to keep pace with changes in their industries and their workforces. Recently, we had a chance to speak with Ian Fanton, senior vice president and head of Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning, about his organization's...
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Want to Ease Your Job Search Pain? Try Networking
Most people don't enjoy the job search process — not necessarily because their livelihood is at stake, but because hunting for a job forces you to sell yourself to strangers and deal with judgment, criticism, and rejection. What is a job seeker to do? Is there any way to make the job search less painful? The first thing to understand is that the days of relying on your resume to woo...
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The Skills That Got You Here Won't Get You There
Do you feel like you're struggling to take your career to the next level? If so, you're not alone. Many of the job seekers I speak to each day are struggling with similar feelings. They have not achieved the things they expected to achieve by now. They're making less money than they thought they would. They haven't landed that plum promotion they've had their eye on for years. These job...
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Solve Your Company's Hiring Drought With These 3 Tips
The latest statistics show the US unemployment rate sits at a remarkable 3.8 percent. While that's terrific news for the economy, low unemployment rates can make it exceedingly difficult to find candidates for open positions. Simply filling a seat can become a nearly impossible task — not to mention filling it with the type of talented, loyal, ambitious, and career-minded professionals...
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#MeToo Battles Resistance in the Workplace
The #MeToo movement has ended the careers of serial sexual abusers and shown millions of victims of sexual harassment and assault that they are not alone. Across the United States, many women feel more empowered than ever before in the fight to combat sexual violence. But is this empowerment translating to the workplace? Nearly three out of four women feel that the #MeToo movement has...
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AI Recruitment Tools: Helping or Replacing Humans?
It's no secret that digital technology is becoming ever prevalent; simultaneously a source of great interest and growing concern. More recently, with the emergence of self-driving technology, like Tesla's Autopilot and virtual assistants such as Alexa, people have also begun to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence (AI). But really, what is AI? For some people,...
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Harnessing the Power of Diversity and Inclusion in Change Initiatives
According to Bruce Fern of Change Ready Solutions, a recent Waggl webinar speaker, "Today, more than ever, in order to stay relevant, competitive, and meet evolving customer demands, businesses must be capable of managing rapid and complex change. Many businesses speak to the importance of diversity and inclusion. Nevertheless, they miss the tremendous opportunity that change offers to put...
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How Predictive Analytics Helps Organizations Retain Talent
In today's competitive labor market — where the global talent shortage is the worst it has been in 10 years — winning and retaining top talent is key for companies to achieve their loftiest goals, from expanding to new markets and actualizing digital transformation to exceeding revenue predictions and more. Recruiting successfully in this landscape requires companies to recognize...
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How to Say 'Later' Without Being a Hater: 5 Tips for Dealing When a Coworker Quits
It's hard to be the one left behind. Whether it's your office bestie, your work spouse, or just a colleague whose good work makes your life easier, it can be difficult to lose a great coworker. But it can also be hard to lose a not-so-great coworker, especially if their departure means their work is going to land squarely on your plate. Regardless of how upset you may be, professionalism...
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Embracing Disruptive Technology to Attract Top Talent
Hey, you — yeah, you with the 11 spreadsheets open on your laptop. What if you didn't have to trudge through all that mindless clerical work every day? What if some sort of technology existed to do those point-and-click tasks for you so you could focus on more important aspects of your job? Well, we've got news for you: That technology does exist. Your boss just doesn't want to pony up...
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6 Ways to Get Passive Candidates Asking You for a Job
Many employers are facing talent shortages today, due in part to historically low unemployment rates. But while there may not be many active job seekers on the market, passive job seekers can help solve a company's labor problems. Passive job seekers — those employees working for your competitors who would be open to a new role but aren't actively looking — do exist. They talk to...
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The Secret to Successful Follow-Up
You've sent out your resume — now what? We all want to receive a response right away after sending in a job application. However, the reality is the HR manager likely has to scan through tens or hundreds of resumes on top of their other job duties. Therefore, fast turnaround times are understandably uncommon in hiring. While you're waiting to hear back, you can do more than stare...
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3 Ways to Save Money While Job Searching
Searching for a new job can take weeks or even months. During that time, you have to keep up with your bills while paying for the extra costs that come with interviewing, such as transportation and clothing. If your budget is already tight, coming up with extra money for your job search can feel impossible, especially if you have federal or private student loans. However, there are ways to...
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The Importance of Distinguishing Between Layoffs and Terminations
In the age of online job postings and one-click applications, recruiters must sort through dozens or even hundreds of applications to find the candidates worth interviewing. As a result, most recruiters have developed a few simple criteria they can use to sort resumes quickly. Long resume gaps have traditionally been a resume-killing red flag, as has gig-only work history. Forced...
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Does the Future of Work Mean No Office at All? Recruiting in a Fully Remote World
According to a recent report from FlexJobs, the number of employees who work from home regularly has grown by 115 percent in a little more than a decade — nearly 10 times faster than the overall workforce has grown. Thanks to today's technology, employers are able to effectively communicate and collaborate with their employees regardless of where they are located in the world. Couple...
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Create a Culture of Learning by Following These 3 Steps
What if 74 percent of your organization's employees weren't reaching their peak potential? This isn't just a hypothetical — it may very well be the case at your company, according to one survey. While many factors contribute to this underachievement epidemic, learning and development opportunities — or the lack thereof — play a central role. Too often, on-the-job training is...
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Marketing Your Skills for a Job Outside Your Traditional Career Path
When you started college, you probably had a specific career path in mind, and perhaps you've followed your plans to the letter. However, in today's fluid business environment, many job seekers are discovering their career skills are transferable to settings they never envisioned. Making such a major career pivot can be both challenging and exciting, and if you understand how to market...
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Top Talent Wants to Work for Companies With Innovative Cultures
If you expect to rest on your laurels and still recruit top talent, think again. Today's top candidates prioritize an organization's capacity for innovation when making career decisions, meaning that recruiters and hiring managers at companies that ignore disruptive trends and technologies may find themselves scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of talent. In fact, candidates...
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Make Your Hourly Employees Feel Like Part of the Team
There are several reasons why a company might separate employees into salaried and non-salaried categories, but it mostly has to do with the type of hours an employee works, the way they are paid, how much they are paid, and the type of work they do. Often, companies treat these two subsets of their workforces very differently — and it's usually not the hourly employees who get the...
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Navigating Taboo Topics in the Workplace
The workplace has changed dramatically since the traditional days of the 9-5 cubicle farms. Despite flexible schedules, perks, and benefits that make the work week a little more manageable, many people working full-time spend as much time with their colleagues as they spend with their friends and families — if not more. But no matter the sense of community in your office or how close...
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Recruiting in the Era of Gen. Z and AI: 3 Trends to Watch
As the saying goes, change is the only constant. That saying has never been as true as it is in recruiting right now. Five generations of employees now work together in offices where constant technological advancement is changing how work gets done and who — or what — is doing it. Many employees now demand remote work options, and others would rather be independent contractors than...
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Glassdoor Announces the Top CEOs of 2018
It's often said that employees don't quit jobs — they quit bosses. There's a good chance you can relate to this sentiment personally. If you're looking for a new job, one of the first things to consider is the management you'll be working for. I believe that finding the right environment is just as important as finding the perfect title, if not more so. As it does every year,...
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Adaptable Executive Leadership Is Key to Company Success
It's a confusing time to be an executive. For decades, best practices for corporations remained pretty much the same, making it easy to map out the path to success. The latest technological revolution has changed that over the past two decades, and company leaders must now strive constantly to present both positive external and internal brands. This comes easier to some leaders than it does...
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8 Benefits That Actually Stink
In general, employers offer benefits because they are trying to make life better in some way for their employees. That sounds so obvious it shouldn't need repeating, but the fact is that it's not too uncommon for organizations to end up offering benefits that cause more problems than they solve. When benefits blow up in an employer's face, the repercussions extend beyond that particular...
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Are the Big 5 a Big No for Predicting Performance?
Do you hire for personality or performance? You'd likely say both, but if you're evaluating candidate personality against factors such as the "the Big Five" or "OCEAN" dimensions (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), you should know that the results you get aren't showing you the full picture of an applicant's future performance. The research into...
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Let #MeToo Be the Push You Need to Prioritize Diversity in Hiring
For recruiters, placing a candidate in a job they want feels like a major victory. But the #MeToo movement raises an important question: What if you're sending that candidate into a toxic environment? There's data to back up the unsettling and heartbreaking anecdotes we read about in the news. Forty-eight percent of employed women have experienced sexual harassment at work, according to...
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Low Workplace Engagement? Use the Sublime to Get Unstuck
Without a doubt, employee engagement is crucial for the success of any workplace. In fact, 84 percent of executives believe learning opportunities — among the most powerful drivers of employee engagement — are important in their companies. However, it seems paradoxical that learning paradigms rarely introduce the unforgettable. In schools and offices, learning seems to do the exact...
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Retail Requires a New Approach to Managing Talent
The retail world is shifting under brands' feet. Retail has dependably been an industry driven by change — changes in fashion trends and the changing of the seasons, changes in the market and changes in technology. Today, those rhythms are accelerating or disappearing. Previously reliable sales channels like department stores are no longer dependable. Just because product is...
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