To Find Diamonds in the Rough, Look at Abilities, Not Resumes
In 2009, programmer Brian Acton applied for positions at Facebook and Twitter and was passed over others in the employment market. Five years later, he sold his startup, WhatsApp, for $19 billion. What happened in between those two events? Two critical moments occurred. First, Acton got an iPhone and had an idea for an app that represented a new market with unlimited potential. Second, he...
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Transforming Performance Reviews From Events Into a Process
All too often, companies treat performance reviews like events. They happen once a year, and in the meantime, many dread what this reviews might hold once that time of year rolls around again. Performance reviews seem to be a once yearly affair for many organizations, but companies would do well to turn them into a continuous, ongoing process instead. Eighty-five percent of...
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Cultivating Innovation in the Workforce Through Diversity
Diversity in the workforce not only fosters understanding between people from different backgrounds, but also drives innovation in company practices and policies. People from different walks of life can bring fresh ideas to the table, and that's becoming integral to the way we do business in 2017. Perhaps that's why 96 percent of respondents to a "Voice of the Workplace" survey from the...
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Student Loan Assistance Act Aims to Help Employers Battle Student Debt
People often mock millennials for living at home longer and staying on their parents' healthcare plans well after college. Millennials tend not to own homes and often drive used cars. While many blame millennial laziness for this state of affairs, the truth is that millennials wrestle with a problem no previous generation has had to deal with: massive student loan debt. Seven of every 10...
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How a Flexible Workplace Can Drive Recruitment and Retention
An important key to company success is having the right employees with the right skills on staff. However, across many industries, the competition to attract and retain talented workers is fierce. To win this competition, employers invest in talent attraction and retention strategies – including, increasingly, flexible work options. By using telecommuting as a business tool, companies can...
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What Makes a Great Recruit? A Look at Post-Hire Success:
The recruiting process is far from foolproof. Finding a great candidate and placing them in the perfect position is a challenging task. HR and recruiting professionals all over the world struggle with it. The average corporate job attracts about 250 applicants. To help you wade through the applications and find the winners, consider these five traits related to employee...
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Which Is Better: Inbound or Outbound Recruiting?
Generally speaking, there are two broad categories of tactics that most recruiters consider: "inbound recruiting" and "outbound recruiting." Each represents a completely different philosophy about the recruiting game, and each comes with its own set of strategies and approaches. But is one better than the other? What's the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Recruiting? As any job...
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5 Ways to Treat People Well in Your Job Search
I tell my daughter, who is often late for appointments, that life is about minutes. The first time I told her this was when she was scheduled to meet someone for an interview, but it applies to any appointment of any kind. This message is particularly appropriate for the job search. Here are five notable examples of how a successful job search can depend on how you treat people : 1. Be...
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What Is Scaring Millennial Superstars Away From Your Company?
If you're having trouble attracting the best of the best to your company, the results of a recent survey might tell you why. According to research from Lee Hecht Harrison, millennials are twice as likely as older employees to share their thoughts and feelings about their employers. This is great news if your millennial employees love your organization, but not if your company has failed to...
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Project an Employee-First Culture by Offering Severance Packages
How an employee is treated on the way out can be just as important as how they are treated during their time with the company. A reputation for helping outgoing employees makes a business more attractive to top talent compared to its competitors. As the nature of the workforce changes, the generosity and scope of severance packages are changing as well. Fifty-four percent of companies...
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Earning Candidate Trust – the Most Valuable Currency in Recruitment
A recent conversation really got me thinking about the challenges faced by recruiters today. Information about candidates has never been so readily available, but that is also making candidates less responsive to our approaches. The solution seems to be building candidate relationships and earning candidates' trust. But how to do so? The Dilemma: More Data, Less Responsive...
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How a Career Transition Can Change Your Life
Graduation is just around the corner, which means many students are making career plans and fretting over life-changing choices. After years of hard study, many graduates feel a pressure to succeed, while others are worried about the prospect of long-term unemployment. Leaving the comfort of college for the unpredictability of corporate life often overshadows the excitement of embarking on...
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Are Apprenticeships Making a Comeback? [Infographic]
For a period of time, college was a no-brainer for most young people. That was the path you had to walk if you wanted a lucrative and rewarding career. At least, that's how the story went. But as tuition costs climbed – and student debt loads grew along with them – and college degrees became more and more common, young people started rethinking the necessity of higher education. Was...
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How A.I. Can Close the 'ATS Black Hole'
We all know what the ATS black hole is: When a candidate sends their resume into an applicant tracking system and then never hears back from the company again. It happens to the best of talent – even people who would be a perfect cultural and technical fit for a role. Unfortunately, many applicant tracking technologies fail to meet the needs of hiring teams and the candidates they're...
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9 Small Businesses Share Their Secrets for Staying Innovative
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: How do you create and maintain a culture of innovation at your small business or startup? What advice do you have to help...
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A Quick Visual Guide to Careers in Therapy [Infographic]
So you want to go into therapy – great! But you need to make a choice: What sort of therapy will you specialize in? Two of the most popular choices are physical therapy and occupational therapy. Physical therapists help people recover from or remediate physical injuries and illnesses, whereas occupational therapists help people develop and maintain the work and life skills they need for...
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Your Career Path Will Be Full of Twists and Turns – and That's a Good Thing
The job market is full of twists and turns you'd never expect. I faced my first twist during college. I grew up in the '90s alongside the internet. Companies like AOL were just starting out. With a "fast" dial-up modem, you could connect to the web through your phone line. It was just the sort of thing a teenager dying to go to college out of state needed. It was an exciting time....
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Holistic Well-Being Can Bring Real Results to an Organization's Bottom Line
Many organizations try to improve their healthcare costs by implementing wellness programs, but they would probably get a bigger bang for their buck if they focused more on holistic employee well-being instead. Well-being programs can reduce a variety of costs to an organization's bottom line in addition to healthcare costs, which can be difficult to lower directly through specific...
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Rock Your Next Career Fair
Career fairs are outstanding places to land your first professional position or find the next step on the ladder. They can also be places where you inadvertently close the door on what could have been an ideal opportunity. Don't let that happen! I've helped many professionals start their careers and find new ones at career fairs. Here is what you need to know to rock the next career fair...
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Don't Provide a Job – Provide an Experience
We've all had that job that left us exhausted and disappointed at the end of every day. Companies that create this kind of environment inevitably deal with high turnover and low productivity. Successful businesses need to create work environments in which employees truly thrive. Common sense tells us that a worker who feels appreciated and excited about their job will always work harder than...
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Why Your Best Talent Is Leaving and 4 Ways to Win Them Back
Most leaders of companies today recognize the importance of having an engaged workforce, yet research consistently shows that between 50 and 80 percent of employees are not fully engaged. When so few employees are fully engaged, organizational performance and customer satisfaction plummet while turnover increases. Worse yet, your best talent – those with lots of options – is likely to...
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3 Reasons Why Your Employee's Personal Brands Are Your Biggest Untapped Resource
Let's say you're in the shampoo aisle at your favorite drugstore and you want to try something different from your usual product. You're between two brands: one you see plastered on every billboard and one that comes highly recommended by your friend. Which do you choose? If I had to guess, I'd say you're most likely to go with the brand that has your friend's stamp of approval. Numerous...
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Using a Tailored Competency Model to Hire the Right People
Every recruiter and hiring manager knows it's best to seek candidates who align with the company's long-term objectives, but knowing and doing are two different things. Getting the right candidate the first time can be a challenge – and going through multiple candidates before finding the right one can be expensive. With the right competency models in place, however, organizations can...
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5 Conflict Resolution Tips for a More Comfortable Workplace Atmosphere
If you're like me, you hate even the idea of conflict. Conflict in any aspect of your life is awkward, but it reaches a whole new level of uncomfortable in the workplace. Many people see their workmates more than they see their own families during the week. If your interactions in the office are filled with petty arguments and negativity, you will end up dreading a large chunk of your...
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4 Qualities Interviewers Look for in Every Candidate
It's no secret that job seekers must satisfy three requirements to land a job: They can do the job. They will do the job. They will fit in. These three requirements have been well known for years. They are the foundation of a complete candidate. But there's also a fourth piece to the puzzle. It is often overlooked, but some companies place more importance on it than any of the...
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Did You Get Called to a Lunch Interview? 11 Dining Etiquette Tips You Have to Know First:
You made it through the first round of interviews, and now you have been invited to lunch with your potential employer. Now what? It's time to mind your manners! Below are 11 tips to help you shine at a lunch or dinner interview: 1. Treat the Waitstaff Well You and your manners are on display. The interviewers will be evaluating how well you get along with others. If you are rude...
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What the Heck Is Artificial Intelligence Anyway? This Video Has the Answers:
The subject has attracted a lot of attention recently, but many people are still wondering: What exactly is artificial intelligence? According to a report issued by the Obama White House last year, "Some define AI loosely as a computerized system that exhibits behavior commonly thought of as requiring intelligence." Sounds simple enough – but this seemingly simply buzzword has made its...
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The Multigenerational Workforce: Can't We All Just Get Along?
If you read any sort of corporate trade media, you can barely go a day without encountering an article from the baby boomer or Gen. X perspective about how lazy and entitled millennials are. Conversely, you'll probably find just as many articles penned by millennials about how older generations of workers are resistant to technology and cling to outdated practices. As millennials age into...
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3 Ways Hiring Assessments Fail You and Your Candidates
Each year, the team here at Talent Tech Labs looks at trends in talent acquisition and tries to predict what will make the most waves in the coming months. While we've been exploring which hiring assessment technologies are pushing boundaries furthest, we have found that there can sometimes be miscommunications between the technologies that exist and the needs of the users. Though we see...
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How to Gain Work Experience While You're Still in School
I was recently speaking to a group of students about their career aspirations and the task of finding work after graduation when the topic of "entry-level roles" came up. Anyone who has looked at listings for entry-level roles recently has probably noticed that the vast majority of them ask for candidates who have experience already – which can pose a challenge for recent graduates. When...
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How the Perfection Trap Is Ruining Your Hiring Process
"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done." – Ecclesiastes 11:4 You've seen them: overly detailed job descriptions masquerading as job postings. You've probably even written them yourself. When it starts, you're simply framing a description of your ideal candidate in isolation. You check all the normal boxes. You lay out experience requirements,...
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6 Ways You Are Sabotaging Your Own Job Search – and You Don't Even Realize It
It's been a few years since you last looked for work, but now you're ready to move on to a new opportunity. And you're feeling pretty good about it – you're feeling like you've got this. You head to the big job boards like Indeed and CareerBuilder to search and apply for jobs you know you can do with your eyes closed, and then you wait. You wait for the phone to ring, but it never...
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Dear Facebook: I'd Rather Use Your Job Search Mobile App (If You Had One)
Dear Facebook, You have charmed billions. You are a daily fixture in the lives of at least hundreds of millions of people. You've introduced so many to the seasoning of chicken, pet adoption, polarizing politics, and fake news. Facebook is where the people are. We are obsessed with you. You know our dirty secrets, lies, medical conditions, and family news. You also know our career...
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Why Professionals Should Practice Like Athletes and Actors
In the business world, things move fast. You write a business proposal, seek approval, and move on to your next project. Efficiency is key. Waste little time. Produce as much as possible. I recently had a wonderful opportunity to share my personal career story at a TEDx event in Worthington, Ohio. Giving a TEDx talk was a huge honor, but also a big responsibility. I wanted to be prepared...
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7 Tactics to Help You Hire the Best Salespeople
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question you'd like to ask? Leave it in the comments, and you might just see it in the next installment of Recruiter QA! Today's Question: Almost every company needs salespeople – which means competition for sales talent is especially fierce. What tips do you...
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Here Are the 7 Trends That Will Define Talent Acquisition in 2017:
Last year, LinkedIn surveyed 4,000 corporate talent acquisition leaders across 35 countries to find out what was going on in the world of TA and where it might be headed this year. As a result of the survey, LinkedIn was able to pinpoint seven critical trends of which today's TA leaders should be aware: Talent acquisition will have a prominent seat at the executive table: 83 percent of...
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How to Handle a Radical Career Shake-Up
Have you ever faced a challenging work-related situation? I think we all have. Maybe you got laid off, or maybe you made a mistake that cost you your job. Whatever the situation, when we face such challenges, our first reaction is typically negative. We can quickly become overwhelmed by fear, shame, or worry. But those initial emotions aren't always warranted. As the brilliant leader...
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Nail Your Next Phone Interview With These 13 Tips [Infographic]
Phone interviews are awkward. It's nerve-racking, trying to impress a stranger on the other end of the phone without the benefit of body language. Every time the two of you speak over one another by accident, you cringe a little more. But no matter how uncomfortable phone interviews are, they're integral pieces of the hiring process for most organizations. If you want a job, there's a good...
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In the Battle for Digital Talent, Job Tenure Counts
There has never been more data available to help you evaluate talent. For any incoming candidate, a recruiter has social media profiles, LinkedIn, resumes, phone conversations, interviews, references, and more at their fingertips to aid in making an educated hiring decision. But this wealth of jobs data poses its own challenge: How do you tell what's relevant and what's just a red herring?...
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Understanding Your Personal Thinking Style Is Key to Advancing Your Career
Do you know what strengths you bring to the table and how to maximize your thinking, talents, and perspective? Our individual thinking styles affect how we interact with colleagues, tackle projects, and present ideas and information. As you advance in your career, knowing what makes you you and how your distinct personality clicks with others will help you identify opportunities to...
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Your Introvert Employees Aren't Shy – You Just Don't Have the Right Structures in Place
Corporate philanthropy platform Causecast operates with a relatively small team – and a significant chunk of it consists of people you might describe as "introverts." "You might expect it's our engineers who are introverted, but we have a lot of introverts everywhere," says Laura Plato, COO and president at Causecast. "Our services team tends to kind of walk the line between...
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3 Ways the Annual Review Process Could Change This Year
Performance management is a major topic of discussion among HR professionals right now, with the debate largely centered around how annual performance reviews can be transformed to serve both managers and employees better. Many companies have decided to ditch the annual review process altogether, while others are opting to stick with this old-fashioned technique. Only 8 percent of...
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Don't Make Employees Choose Between Their Jobs and Their Health
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) enabled 20 million people who did not previously have health insurance to acquire it, including many with preexisting conditions. On the surface, it may seem like this should be enough to keep employees healthy, but it rarely is. In truth, millions who have healthcare still don't seek standard preventative care because they can't afford to take the day off...
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Beat Your Job Interview Nerves With This Cheat Sheet
One common issue many candidates face in an interview is forgetting what they want to say. Essentially, the candidate's mind goes blank. All the great answers they had prepared just disappear. This can be a huge hurdle to overcome, and it can lead to you missing out on roles that you are a great fit for. However, there is a way to beat this blankness. The first step is to understand that...
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How to Recruit the Best Restaurant Staff
Recruiting the right staff can mean the difference between success and failure in the restaurant industry. No matter how good your food or how lavish your decorations, if you don't have the right staff to make those things shine, your tables will be empty. So, yes, there is a lot riding on your staffing decisions. Though this may make recruiting sound like a difficult job, it doesn't...
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Active and Passive Candidates: What You Thought You Knew May Be Wrong
As the competition for talent continues to heat up, savvy recruiters are recognizing the importance of marketing tactics in engaging and attracting top candidates in the job market. As any marketer will tell you, it is essential to know your target audience so you can optimize messaging and keep candidates engaged during the recruitment process. An important component of this strategy is...
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How to Prepare for a Lunch Interview
You have been invited to lunch as part of the interview process. Now what? 1. Research the Restaurant Confirm the exact location of the restaurant. You do not want to go to the wrong location. You also don't want to be late, so become familiar with the traffic patterns during the time of day you will be driving to the restaurant. Even if it is a very casual dining establishment, you...
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Changing Workforce Trends Force Recruiting to Evolve
Fifty years ago, executives could just throw extra workers at a problem until it was resolved, but today, things aren't so easy. Unemployment is low, and every industry seems to face skill gaps of varying sizes. Hiring more employees to fix big issues is no longer an option. In the 2017 Talent Trends Report from Randstad Sourceright, 81 percent of respondents felt that talent scarcity...
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