4 Reasons Why You Should Consider Learning to Code
If you are looking to advance in your career, learning to code could be a surprisingly good way to do it. A full-time career in coding isn't the best fit for everyone, but becoming code literate can go a long way toward advancing almost any career. Here are the key reasons why: 1. You'll Learn New Ways of Problem-Solving When you learn to code, you learn to solve problems like...
Read More
Building a Bias Toward Action: Deloitte's Case Studies on Encouraging Innovative Business Practices
Innovation is key to success. Keeping abreast of the latest business processes and culture models can be crucial to the future of your organization. Of course, doing so is often easier said than done. Fortunately, it is possible to avoid the pain of trial and error by learning from the examples and mistakes of other organizations. To help business leaders identify and implement the...
Read More
When Work Feels Chaotic, Take Back Your Power With Learning
The modern workplace can give even the most laid-back person a case of sensory overload. At any given time, emails arrive, notifications flash, devices buzz, coworkers chit-chat, and meeting reminders pop up. It's no wonder 70 percent of respondents to the "Udemy In Depth: 2018 Workplace Distraction Report" said they're distracted. The steady stream of distractions is making people...
Read More
LinkedIn Secrets for CEOs: The Benefits of Strategically Expanding Your Network
Many CEOs I speak with have either all but abandoned their LinkedIn profiles or are so high profile they don't bother with LinkedIn, so as to minimize their exposure. Other CEOs, however, are very active on LinkedIn, and they reap much benefit from it. LinkedIn allows them to leverage their industry niches and geographic markets, attract top talent, and draw potential opportunities...
Read More
6 LinkedIn Profile Rules You Can Ignore
There are numerous articles on how to properly write your LinkedIn profile. With all the advice floating around out there, it's no wonder LinkedIn users are feeling confused or overwhelmed. I am guilty of writing some of these articles, so I would like to provide some relief. What follows are some rules you can actually ignore for six important areas of your profile: 1. Your Background...
Read More
Are We Heading Toward an HR World of Haves and Have-Nots?
Peek inside the stratosphere of the top 500 global companies and you'll find a world where the future of work is being aggressively explored through experimentation, technology, and robust budgets. The technology and institutional knowledge powering human resources functions have progressed rapidly in recent years, with the largest firms investing more than ever on people-related...
Read More
To Land a New Job, Start Talking to Strangers
When you were young, the adults in your life likely taught you about "stranger danger," warning you that people you didn't know could harm you. When it comes to children, I wholeheartedly agree: Avoiding strangers is a good way to stay safe. Frankly, I still sometimes avoid strangers in public places for fear that something might go wrong. Perhaps it's a reflex left over from...
Read More
Low Unemployment Rates Create New Opportunities for Disabled Workers
With US unemployment rates staying under 4.5 percent for more than a year, many employers have been struggling to find qualified workers for the more than six million open jobs in the labor market. As such, recruiters and hiring managers are now paying closer attention to untapped labor pools, including the two-thirds of disabled Americans whom the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports...
Read More
To Leave or Stay? How to Tell When It's Time to Quit Your Job
I was recently asked, "How do you know when you should quit your job?" This is a question many people struggle to answer, while others just quit without thinking about how wise their decision may have been. Investing in a career coach and/or talking to your mentor can help you figure out whether or not to leave a job. When having these discussions — or when considering your options by...
Read More
Are Your Employees Suffering From App Overload?
Trouble tracking your schedule? There's an app for that. Need to keep all project stakeholders on the same page? There's an app for that. Too many email addresses? There's an app for that. Communicating through too many different messenger programs? You guessed it — there's an app for that too. Add in Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, and other standard office software, and the...
Read More
A Recovering Addict's Guide to a Toxic Work Environment
"The keg is becoming the new water cooler," declares a 2013 article in The Wall Street Journal. The article goes on to describe a growing trend of alcohol in the workplace as more employers offer free booze to attract and retain employees. While this may be a positive incentive for some workers, it is nothing short of an environmental hazard for many recovering addicts, who make up a...
Read More
4 Tools Employers Use to Make Hiring Easier for Them — and Harder for You
You're probably aware of the general process employers follow when filling a position. First, they consider their own employees; next, they ask for referrals from their employees; third, they seek referrals from people they trust outside the company; fourth, they hire recruiters; and finally, they advertise the position if nothing else works. Sometimes, they'll use a combination of some...
Read More
Time to Automate: Managers Are Losing 8 Hours Per Week to Manual Tasks
Human resources professionals are the glue that holds the company together. Not only are you tasked with key administrative processes like managing benefits and payroll, but you are also responsible for building company culture and keeping employees engaged. What's more, you spearhead the hiring process that creates the workforce in the first place. Large corporations can hire and onboard...
Read More
The Other Side of Millennials: Beyond the Avocado Toast
Recently, while crunching on some avocado toast for breakfast, I started to think about the stigma that surrounds being a millennial. This generation is often criticized for its way of living, told to lay off the costly avocado toast if they want to buy a house anytime soon. Are millennials truly deserving of this bad reputation and animosity from other generations? I don't think...
Read More
17 TED Talks for When You Need Some Career Inspiration
No matter your industry or job title, TED Talks can offer you inspiration and help you think about common concepts in new ways. They can also give you the advice you need to take your career to the next level. Looking for some TED Talks to help you breathe new life into your career? Check out the new infographic from Fundera. The 17 inspiring talks on this list are full of insights...
Read More
Unleash Your Superstars by Redesigning How They Work
To thrive in this global economy and meet the changing demands of an increasingly sophisticated consumer base, organizations must bring new products, services, and business models to market faster than ever before. The dawn of the digital era has forced companies to innovate and adapt at lightning speed. Those that don't will soon be overtaken by the next high-growth, well-funded startup that...
Read More
Feeling Stuck in Your Career? Here's How Yoga Can Help
Another Monday unfolds, replacing the weekend's adventures with meetings, memos, and morning commutes. What happened to the power career you imagined — the one where waking up each morning was exciting, the office dress code was "fashionista," and every executive decision made the world a better place? Somewhere along the way, monotony and complacency flooded in, drowning your...
Read More
No Experience? No Problem — You Can Still Write a Great Resume
Congrats, soon-to-be grad! Diploma in hand, you're ready for the real world. Well — almost. As you head out into the job market for the first time, you're going to need a stellar resume to set yourself apart from all the other members of your graduating class. There's just one problem: You don't really have any experience, aside from a few small part-time jobs. That's...
Read More
When Time Is Tied to Outcomes, Project Managers Can Be Heroes
The role of project manager is evolving, and the project managers of today have heightened responsibility when it comes to company profits and bottom lines. Those who can't adapt will be left behind, but those who learn to evolve have the opportunity to become heroes within their organizations. Project Managers' Responsibilities in the Automation Era In the past, the ideal project...
Read More
5 Simple Steps to Networking on LinkedIn
According to one popular estimate, 85 percent of jobs are filled through networking. Many open positions aren't ever posted on job boards or advertised publicly. As a job seeker, you can't afford to focus solely on applying to online job ads and waiting for the phone to ring. If you're going to be an active participant in your own career development, you have to put yourself out...
Read More
Performance Reviews Are the Worst — Here Are 4 Ways to Make Them Better
At some point, you've probably had that moment of panic while approaching a stoplight. You see the yellow light appear, and you have to make a split-second decision: Do I slow down and stop or hit the gas and race through before the light turns red? Performance reviews are, in some ways, similar. As they appear on the horizon, a manager has to ask themself: Should I slow down and really...
Read More
An Excellent Candidate Experience Starts With Effective Communication
In a market hungry for talent, competition for top-notch candidates is fierce. In order to recruit stellar contenders, recruiters and HR managers must first know how to communicate effectively with them. First impressions are important. If the initial communication with an applicant isn't satisfactory, it can hurt their overall candidate experience with your company. What kind of...
Read More
How Online Compliance Training Can Foster a Respectful, Ethical Workplace Culture
The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements are shining a spotlight on the importance of creating respectful, harassment-free workplaces. For many organizations, this means rethinking how online compliance training can play a more active role in preventing misconduct and promoting ethical cultures. No longer just another check-the-box item, compliance training can be a valuable asset to HR...
Read More
The Surest Way to Improve Your Sales Recruiting Strategy Is by Listening
You've found a perfectly good candidate, but after one look at their social media profiles, you're moving them to the "no" pile. Admit it: You've done this before. In fact, one in five recruiters have turned down a candidate due to their social media presence, according to a March 2017 YouGov report. But what if, instead of looking at what candidates were doing wrong on social...
Read More
How to Bring the Hottest Experience to the Top of Your Resume
Whether you are an external recruiter or a job-seeking candidate, crafting a resume that gets results — i.e., interviews and hopefully offers — may depend on a few special tweaks you might not have considered. These tweaks are designed to bring more page-two experience to the forefront and emphasize on the hottest information hiring managers want to see. While the hybrid resume that...
Read More
4 Ways Recruiters Can Act More Like Salespeople
As a recruiter, you work with one of the most important (and unpredictable) resources in the world: people. Whether you are hiring engineers, HR pros, salespeople, marketers, or finance professionals, you need a process in place. My recommendation is to approach recruiting like sales. So, where do you start? How do you adopt sales techniques to recruit top candidates in the job...
Read More
Always Keep Some 'Running Away Money' on Hand
I recently had the privilege of interviewing the incredibly impressive Margaret Heffernan for my podcast. Over the course of her career, Heffernan has run five companies in the US and the UK, taught at the college level, written five books, and given multiple TED Talks. In fact, Heffernan's career is so impressive that it was hard to narrow my questions for her into a list that would fit...
Read More
How fast should your hiring process be? What we can learn from Goldilocks
When it comes to hiring, many employers spend their time and energy on finding that perfect candidate. Where do you discover the best people? How do you attract their interest? What's the best way to figure out who's the right fit? Sourcing and sorting candidates is definitely a challenge (we know – that's our specialty!), but there's another part of the hiring cycle that's often...
Read More
Advertising Agency Recruiting: A New Old View
In today's digital world, many advertising agencies have a two-fold recruiting strategy: Focus on attracting the brightest, most tech-savvy talent on the market, typically "digital natives" who are tailor-made for agency life. When hiring for management and senior-level positions, focus on candidates primarily under the age of 45. The advertising industry is definitely getting...
Read More
10 Ways to Appear More Confident Today
They say you should fake it until you make it. And while this advice is a bit suspect is certain situations — you wouldn't want to fake driving a car before you could actually drive it, because, well, we know what would happen there — it turns out to be incredibly apt when it comes to confidence. By now, you may have heard of "power poses" — poses that actually make you feel...
Read More
Why It's Important to Take Relaxing Breaks During the Workday (and How to Do It)
As ironic as it seems, improving your workplace performance may require you to work a little less. Taking breaks — the right way — is known to have a measurable effect on your performance. The problem is, our work culture disproportionately values the employees who spend the most time working, regardless of how productive those hours are. If you want to achieve more, be more...
Read More
3 Tips on Writing a Response-Worthy Networking Email Introduction
A critical component of networking is understanding how to write a networking email introduction. Your approach can make all the difference between getting a response and being forgotten. Here are three key tips on writing a response-worthy networking email introduction: 1. Create Commonality When writing a cold networking email introduction, it is essential to establish a point...
Read More
Here's the No. 1, Research-Backed Way to Keep Employees Motivated
Keeping employees engaged isn't always easy, but it is always necessary. But with so many different types of workers within one workplace, what's the simplest way to keep your employees motivated — and, by extension, engaged? I'm extremely passionate about creating collaborative work environments with highly engaged employees. A huge part of this undertaking is investing in your people....
Read More
Move Over Soft Skills — the Future Demands Super Skills
We glimpse the future every day, and sometimes it's weird. There are now refrigerators that will order groceries before you run out, doors in our homes that we can lock or unlock from cellphones halfway around the world, and semi-trucks that drive themselves. If one thing is for sure, it's this: It's only going to get weirder from here. What does that all mean for the workforce? What...
Read More
The Long-Term Benefit of Working for Free
Article by Tom Bilyeu If you're serious about making money, go work for free. This isn't a joke. Prioritizing a paycheck is very short-term thinking. Think about it: If you play everything perfectly and stumble into a job that pays a fortune, what are you really going to make? If you're lucky, $100,000 — maybe. In fact, if your first job pays $100,000, you're about as rare as an...
Read More
5 Ways Sentimentality Is Killing Your Career
I have a Spotify playlist called "Endorphins." As of today, it contains more than 200 soft rock love songs/somebody-done-somebody-wrong songs. These songs take me somewhere pleasant and calming. I'm sure you have a playlist that does the same for you. Similarly, you may also look back on a previous workplace the same way I look at my playlist. Perhaps you remember an office where you once...
Read More
Are You Being Ageist Against Young Interviewers?
As a career strategist, I often come to the defense of older workers who experience ageism. However, I don't talk enough about "reverse ageism" — in other words, how older job seekers treat younger interviewers during the process. Some older job seekers have told me they have a hard time taking younger interviewers seriously. Their arrogance is clear as they talk about their...
Read More
Trump's Tax Plan May Spur Small Business Hiring in 2018
Donald Trump is, historically, a businessman. As such, it may be no surprise that many small businesses could see a boost in 2018 due to his tax plan, also known as The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The effects of the bill on individual taxpayers are still uncertain, but business owners will be able to claim higher deductions and pay in at lower rates, which could leave extra money on the...
Read More
4 Tips for Creating Successful Content Around a Trending Topic
There is an endless number of topics that start trending, either on a periodic basis or as cultural events occur. The Super Bowl, a rise in cryptocurrency price, Christmas flight travel volume, the Stranger Things finale — the list goes on. Content marketers can capitalize on these by creating material that readers are craving. So, how do you know if you can leverage these topics as they...
Read More
3 Steps to Establishing a Shared Vision of Success for Your Organization
People want to join the winning team. It is human nature to want to be on the side of success. People also want to feel they are truly part of that team — to share in the highs and lows, to score against the opposition, and to overcome personal challenges to get there. In business, as in sport, creating a winning team involves talent, hard work, strategy, and leadership. Each...
Read More
The No. 1 Reason Job Seekers Make Bad Career Decisions
We spend about a third of our days at our jobs, and yet roughly 70 percent of us are unhappy with our careers. While a lack of praise from leadership can explain this unhappiness, the job's fit may be a problem, too. It's not necessarily that an employee isn't smart enough to do the job they've chosen; even the smartest people make poor career decisions. Rather, poor career choices...
Read More
Retain Your Top Employees by Being a Great Leader
As the unemployment rate in the US continues to hover around 4 percent, finding and keeping quality employees is becoming more difficult. However, it is not impossible. To retain great employees, it is imperative to first be a great leader. Studies show that an employee's relationship with their supervisor can significantly influence their commitment to their job. While there is no...
Read More
Nothing Is Impossible: How to Increase Retention Among Tech Workers
Competition for talent is cutthroat in the tech sector. If you're a manager working at a technology company, a recruiter from a competitor is probably in the process of courting someone on your team as you read this. The recruiter may be offering a better salary, more flexible hours, or any other number of perks and benefits to get your worker to jump ship. If your company fails to provide a...
Read More
4 Communication Touchpoints to Focus on During Your Next Interview
In an interview setting, communication skills can make all the difference in determining which of two equally skilled candidates will get the job. Some people are naturally good communicators, giving them the advantage. If you don't consider yourself a natural, that doesn't mean you're incapable of improvement, nor does it mean you need to act like someone you aren't. The value of...
Read More
Why the Employee Experience Is Worth the Investment
Companies typically invest in those things that can clearly affect their bottom lines in positive ways. Sales initiatives bring in money (or not), for example. Marketing and advertising efforts can be measured. New equipment can increase productivity, which is then directly connected to profits. Unfortunately, when we get into the realm of people, companies become more hesitant about...
Read More
3 Tips on Hiring in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
We are no longer on the brink of a changed world resulting from artificial intelligence (AI) — we are already immersed in that world. Today, software-driven machines are learning to process unstructured information in meaningful ways, an activity that until relatively recently was the domain of humans alone. As more and more companies join the AI revolution, it is becoming clear that AI is...
Read More
SXSW 2018 Recap: My First Year at the Festival
I recently had the opportunity to attend South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, for the first time. If you've never been, SXSW is a giant festival in downtown Austin that draws in thousands of people. Founded in 1987, SXSW can bring more than $300 million to Austin's economy every year. Since it first began, SXSW has grown in both size and scope. It now combines a number of...
Read More
To Establish a High-Trust Culture, Give Employees a Voice
The word "culture" has many definitions, but within a business context it usually speaks to the connectedness between the people of an organization, the central mission of the organization, and how work is accomplished each day. Until very recently, culture was often marginalized. It was frequently viewed by the executive management team as a peripheral concern. If cultural...
Read More
