Tackling a Job Search When You're in Outpatient Treatment
As if a job search were not daunting enough on its own, it becomes vastly more complicated and anxiety-inducing when you're going through drug or alcohol rehab at the same time. Faced with this reality, many of us might go so far as to quit the job search altogether. Most of us would at least toy with canceling our subscriptions to LinkedIn. That said, tackling a job search when...
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How to Write Effective Bullet Points for Your Resume
Of the 250 resumes received on average for each job opening, only 4-6 will garner an interview. This means that 98 percent of applicants are rejected based on their resumes alone. These odds may seem daunting, but I'm not trying to scare you. Rather, I only want to demonstrate the importance of writing a resume that stands out. Improving your resume can make a world of difference for your...
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4 Keys to Conducting a Successful Mock Interview
One of my clients told me recently that the mock interview I conducted with her was the best experience she'd had preparing for an interview to date. This was after a session during which I reviewed her performance with constructive criticism and, at times, brutal honesty. I understand my client's sentiment, because I also think mock interviews are extremely effective — if done...
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5 Ways to Create a Culture That Supports Employee Mental Health
When we at CHG Healthcare started focusing on company culture and employee engagement 15 years ago, we got a lot of strange looks. Investors wondered why we spent so much time and energy on our people, and other HR professionals asked us why we would prioritize cultural fit over skill set when we brought on new employees. These days, however, most employers get it. They understand the...
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Tips for Looking Refreshed and Rested for Your Interview
Heading into the interview for your dream job, it's important to show your prospective employer that you're up for the challenge of a new role. To make a lasting impression you'll have to do — and look — your best. This pre-interview regimen is sure to help you look refreshed and rested leading up to the big day: Step 1: Cover the Essentials of Self-Care Caffeine and energy...
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3 Tips for Impressing Recruiters on Social Media
With 3.03 billion people around the world actively using social media, it's no surprise that social media is now a key part of the hiring process. Resumes, cover letters, references, and interviews are still central, but recruiters are also embracing social media to learn more about who candidates are beyond their curated professional personas. A survey conducted for CareerBuilder by Harris...
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How to Get Senior Managers to Support Your Learning and Development Initiative
Today's workforce has very different career expectations compared to previous generations. Millennials in particular are enthusiastic about career growth opportunities, with 87 percent prioritizing professional development over other workplace benefits. It's clear learning and development (LD) programs are highly valued by employees. However, surveys show that many...
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What's in Your Tool Kit? How to Be a Conversational Class Act
Networking is an inevitable and integral part of professional success. Some of us are naturals. Many of us are not. The small talk at networking events or before meetings can be perfunctory at best and anxiety-producing at worst. Whether you attend every networking event you can or avoid them whenever humanly possible, there is room for each of us to grow. Here is some advice on on how...
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Stop Letting Clients Slow Your Candidate Placements Down
It should be no surprise that more than half of sourcing and hiring pros want to shorten their time to hire, according to "2018 Growth Hiring Trends in the United States," a report from the team at Spark Hire. Even those pros who say their average hiring time is less than a week would like to further expedite the process! But as badly as we'd all like to speed up our placements, we...
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Finding Career Independence
One of the the most common causes of career dissatisfaction is the lack of control. It can take many forms: not doing the kind of work you enjoy, working for a boss you don't like, being underpaid, etc. No matter what your lack of control looks like, it can breed a feeling of helplessness that takes a toll on your emotional state both in the office and outside of it. Finding career...
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Sales Reps Say These Workplace Factors Are More Important Than Money
Money-hungry and sales-driven: These two terms are frequently used to describe competitive sales representatives. Because of these stereotypes, many recruiters focus on salary and bonus/commission structures to entice top sales talent. If this is your technique, it's time for a drastic strategy update. The "2018 Medical Sales Salary Report" from my team here at MedReps surveyed 2,793...
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Whose Line Is It Anyway: Should HR Answer the Culture Question Alone?
Recently, some folks have started a conversation about why more startups should invest in HR departments. They usually make the case that HR is good for culture. As someone who has written about HR for 15 years and run a company for eight, I can tell you that most organizations don't start an HR department until they have to. HR is usually a reactive measure, spurred by ramped-up...
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Reading Between the Lines of a Job Ad
First-time home-buyers may be easily impressed by advertising lingo like "easy-care yard," but the more seasoned shopper knows that's code for "small and filled with stones and cacti." "Great starter house"? That means you should expect to spend a lot of time fixing it up. So it goes with job ads. Especially early in our careers, we're often eager and excited to read ads for roles that...
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Creating Dynamic Video Training Content on a Budget
The modern workforce is changing — quickly. With each passing year, employees become more tech savvy than ever before. Today's workers want technology infused into every aspect of their jobs — including training. As a result, many companies have begun to create video-based training content for employees. Such content tend to resonate with tech-oriented employees, and it often leads...
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The Psychology of Color: How What You Wear Can Affect Your Work Performance
Article by Allie Lochiatto If we were to take a look inside your closet, we'd probably find one or two colors to be predominant. Whether intentionally or not, most people tend to gravitate toward certain colors when shopping. Some may like the simplicity of a wardrobe filled with basic black, while others prefer shades that complement their skin tone or eyes. But have you ever thought...
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Internal Hires: The Keystone of a Successful Talent Management Strategy
For more than 20 years, the defining concept of talent management in executive circles has been "the war for talent." First posed by McKinsey Co. in 1998, the idea was simple and compelling at its birth: Talent is a significant driver of business success, and demographic trends would force companies to devote increasing amounts of time, effort, and money to attracting, retaining, and...
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Medical Sales Salaries Are Down, But Total Income Is Up
Medical sales reps face various challenges throughout their careers, many of which can result in dramatic cuts to their earnings. With so many variables at play, it's important for medical sales reps to understand how their compensation can change from year to year. Medical sales job board MedReps surveyed 2,793 of its members to understand what factors cause base salaries,...
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Creating a Successful Internship Program in 6 Easy Steps
Internship programs are great opportunities for students to develop skills, gain insights into a new industry, and prepare for their futures after graduation. These programs also give your existing employees the chance to become mentors, and they can even turn into great sources of new talent for your organization. Great internship programs don't just happen by accident. You need to do...
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Adapting to a Dynamic Market: Advice From Expert Recruiters
The upside: Unemployment is at a record low, the economy is booming, and the outlook is positive. Smart business leaders are pushing growth. Which brings us to the downside: Competition for the best talent is intensifying. What was effective five years ago — or even last year — is not working today. The "2018 Trendicators Report" collects some advice from expert recruiters on how...
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5 Ways to Turn Your Internship Into a Career
Imagine you've landed a great position with an organization you're passionate about and an office culture that makes you feel comfortable. You're working on exciting projects that are expanding your knowledge and expertise. You have a supportive manager who wants to help you grow your career, and you love the coworkers you spend your time with every day. Sounds like a dream job, doesn't...
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7 Rules for Creating a Resume for Your First Job out of College
Finding your first real job out of college can be stressful. It takes time and perseverance to scour the search engines and research companies you may want to work for. But before you do any of that, you have to create a resume. Most hiring managers only spend a few minutes (and sometimes just a few seconds) skimming candidates' resumes before making a decision. With so little time to get...
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Humble, Honest, and Hungry: The 3 Hs of Hiring
While skills are important in a new hire, it's easy to train for them in most cases. What are not so easy to train for are what I call the three Hs of hiring — and a new hire who lacks these traits will not succeed, no matter how skilled they are. I have hired my share of folks, and many of them have worked under my direct management, so I know whereof I speak. And what are these...
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5 Ways for Leaders to Build Lasting Relationships With Their Gig Workers
The growing gig economy is forcing leaders to evaluate and adapt. People no longer see contract and freelance work as last resorts but as legitimate career choices in their own rights. As the workforce fragments into piecemeal contracts, managers are tasked with fostering relationships across varying employee types. Building lasting relationships with gig economy workers will set a company...
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The Business Case for Supporting Employees' Mental Health
Approximately one in five employees in the United States say mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety have made challenges in their jobs more difficult to handle over the past month, according to Counseling@Northwestern, the online Master of Arts in counseling program from The Family Institute at Northwestern University. While more companies are starting to recognize the...
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Are You Living Your Purpose as a Leader? Answer These 4 Questions to Find Out
When it comes to purpose in business and leadership, do you find yourself talking the talk yet wondering whether you're walking the walk? Do you worry you're not really living your express purpose? There are all sorts of mixed messages out there about what, exactly, purpose is. To some, purpose means contributing to and serving a cause greater than oneself, like saving the planet. To...
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How Much Do You Make?
You've applied for a job and your resume has made it through the first round of screening. Now, the HR manager is calling to have a quick chat to qualify you. The conversation seems normal at first. You field basic questions like "Why did you apply for this job?" and "Tell me about yourself." But then comes the curveball: "How much do you make?" It's a deceptively simple question,...
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4 Questions You Must Answer About Your Candidate Experience
Standing in the checkout line at Target last night I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between two people in front of me. A young woman, clearly a disappointed job candidate, was relating a story to her friend about the terrible experience she'd had with a recent interview. She'd taken time off work to attend the interview but was told when she arrived that it had been...
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Psychological Safety: The Key to a Healthy Workplace Culture
Healthy workplace culture is a prominent topic of discussion in this day and age. Equality, diversity, and communication are real issues companies have to consider when building their organizational structures. As the founder and CEO of Impraise, I have worked with organizations that had everything from in-office gyms to pool tables. What most of these companies failed to realize is...
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7 Tips for Better Business Travel
Business travel, while a great way to see the world and meet new people, isn't without its annoyances and obstacles. However, many of the common problems business travels face are caused simply by a lack of knowledge, whether it's a failure to plan ahead, an unforeseen circumstance, or unfamiliar customs. To make your next trip more enjoyable — and to avoid any business-killing faux...
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3 Steps to Finding Hidden Jobs on LinkedIn
Most job seekers on LinkedIn wait to be contacted about an open job. They're all waiting for the inbound call instead of digging into the hidden job market to find jobs that aren't even open yet. Most growing companies budget in advance the hires they need to make for a whole year. For example, if a company plans to hire five people in the coming year, or 50, or 500, they can't absorb them all...
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Working in Blockchain: Lucrative Careers in Cutting-Edge Tech
Not only has the initial coin offering (ICO) and cryptocurrency gold rush sparked massive investment, but it is also establishing a brand new industry containing plenty of exciting new jobs. From the obvious roles of engineers and full stack developers to the not-so-obvious ones like business strategists and content writers, here are some of the newly created cryptocurrency and blockchain...
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Recent Grads: Opt In to Lifelong Learning
You're sitting in the lobby, waiting for the interview to start, reflecting on everything you learned over these last four years while in college. You've mastered everything about accounting and business that you could learn from a professor and a textbook. You've graduated. It's time to land a job and apply what you know in the real world. You'll rely on these same skills for the entire...
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5 Onboarding Best Practices Every Organization Should Adopt Today
First impressions are important, especially during the recruiting process. New hires use their first few days on the job to decide whether they'll stay with your organization for the long haul. That's why a quality onboarding program is so pivotal. How can you make sure your program meets employee needs and promotes retention? Start by adopting these five best practices: 1. Use...
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How to Deal With High Turnover Rates
Turnover. It means extra time spent hiring and recruiting. It means losing productivity while training new hires. It means low employee morale and strain on your organization. High turnover is a disease to your business. Left untreated, it can bring an organization down. How high is high turnover? Well, that depends. Turnover rates vary by industry, with some reaching as high as 6.1...
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40 Feedback Phrases to Help Employees Feel Empowered
Annual feedback conversations do little to support employees' goals or monitor their progress. That's why so many organizations have been switching to continuous, constructive forms of feedback. Ongoing feedback conversations allow employees to see the impact their work has and to adjust their behaviors in order to improve performance in real time. But feedback is not magic; it needs to be...
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How to Tell Your Employer You Are Entering Rehab
In one memorable episode of The Office, Steve Carrell's character Michael Scott organizes a workplace intervention for his alcoholic employee Meredith — and his so-called "surprise party for people with addictions" is a total disaster. Michael Scott may be a mid-level manager at a fictional paper company, but his actions do reflect a reality in the workplace: Nearly 1 in 10 full-time...
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Why Time Is of the Essence When It Comes to Hiring in the Retail and Hospitality Industries
Everyone knows you have to move fast to land top talent, but in the retail and hospitality industries, recruiters face even tighter time pressures. Candidates in these industries aren't looking for the perfect job, they're looking for a job — and they want it fast. Research from my company, StartMonday, found that 21 percent of job seekers in the retail and hospitality industries will...
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Graduates: Avoid These 6 Early Career Pitfalls
The summer can be an exciting time for a young job seeker, especially if you're fresh off of college graduation and ready to embark on your professional career journey. As you head out in search of your first job, set yourself up for long-term success by avoiding these common early career pitfalls: 1. Don't Let Your Parents Get Involved in Your Job Search At the most, your parents...
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5 Ways a Great Benefits Program Can Help You Win the War for Talent
The war for talent is as fierce as it's ever been, due in part to shifting preferences among job seekers. The "job for life" mentality is practically dead, especially among younger workers. According to a Jobvite survey, 42 percent of millennials now change jobs every 1-3 years. Increasing employee turnover throughout the last two decades has caused employers to focus their attention...
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How Agencies and Recruiters Can Be Strong Partners With MSPs
In a previous article, I covered the steps recruiters can take to improve their performance in markets where vendor management services (VMSs) and managed service providers (MSPs) have a heavy presence. To examine this concept in further detail, I reached out to VMS/MSP market. To examine this further, I reached out to Alan Johnson, director of business development at FocusOne...
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LinkedIn 101: Expanding Your Online Presence as a Recruiter
As a recruiter, you understand the importance of quality branding. Everything you write and say to the outside world is a reflection of you and your brand, so you must choose your words wisely. Consider your LinkedIn identity. You have to be careful about how your profile looks. Consider what you post and how you contribute to the posts of others. A selfie with a pint, a pout, your...
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How Transparency and Inclusion Help Drive Profit
In my role as head of consulting at Waggl, I have worked with diverse clients, and I have seen the clear evidence of the relationship between transparency, inclusion, and profit. Of course, many senior executives prefer to focus almost solely on increased productivity in order to boost profit and shareholder returns. This is understandable and often appropriate, but the fact is that...
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The Evolution — and Future — of Workplace Communication
How we communicate changes how we work. Don't believe me? Consider that the flexible work craze would be impossible without advanced communication technology that allows people to connect instantly with one another regardless of where they are in the world. But that's now; what's coming next? How will our communication and our ways of working change in the future? It's impossible to...
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The 3 Most Avoidable Resume Mistakes
It's an often repeated fact that recruiters and hiring managers only spend about six seconds scanning a resume before deciding whether to keep it or toss it. If your resume only has mere seconds to capture a decision-maker's attention, you need to be certain to avoid any of the triggers that can send it to the "no thanks" pile. Here are three such triggers that are incredibly common but...
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In a Candidate's Market, It's Time to Streamline Your Applications
Recruiting used to be about finding candidates and hiring them, but today, it's so much more. As a recruiter, you can't just find any old candidate — you have to find a candidate who fits the company culture. And to prevent that candidate from being poached by another company before you can hire them, you have to keep them engaged throughout the recruiting process. See, today's job...
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The Factor That Drives Job Hopping More Than Any Other: Education
Few can hope to succeed over the long haul with just a high school education. And while college isn't necessarily the best choice for everyone, many students have internalized the message that it's the only option, passing up valuable vocational training opportunities as a result. But no matter what educational path your pursue, you'll launch your career at some point. Once you're there,...
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The Interviewer Has Asked You to Deliver a Presentation — Here's How to Nail It
The standard question-and-answer interview is still the format you're most likely to face on the job hunt, but it's far from the only way in which employers are evaluating candidates. In fact, today's hiring managers are getting quite creative, with many asking for direct proof of candidates' skills in the form of tests, practice projects, role-playing, and even presentations. Yes, more...
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Employer Branding on the Cheap: 8 Things You Can Do for Next to Nothing
The Employer Brand Forum is a Facebook group specifically for professionals who are responsible for employer branding efforts. Below, we collect some of our favorite dirt-cheap employer branding tips from members of the group. Check them out for inspiration that won't break the bank: 1. Ask Employees to Create Videos Having your employees make videos about their work is an easy, fun...
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