Why I Stopped Interviewing People – and Started Paying Them $400 Instead
A little while ago, I made a bad hire for my company. It was my fault. I didn't do the due diligence properly. Did I fail to interview them? No. In fact, it was precisely the opposite. An interview is exactly what I did do, and I learned very little. Given that our business day in, day out is helping companies hire better people, I should have known better. This is my mea culpa. The bad...
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8 Things to Keep in Mind When It's Time to Quit Your Job
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: Sometimes, in order to advance in your career, you'll need to quit a job in favor of a new one. Just because it's necessary...
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Bringing the Power of Movies to the Conference Room (With and Without Video)
When it comes to attracting, training, motivating, and unifying employees, more and more companies are using a powerful new tool. It's not a new technology. Rather, it's a technique based on something we already know and love: movies. We've all experienced how powerful movies are. In seconds, they can make even the most distant planet feel real. Their heroes teach and inspire us. The...
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In Healthcare, Productivity Starts With Recruiting
Healthcare organizations across the board could benefit from better hiring practices, but these improvements are especially important for smaller healthcare institutions. These medical practices can't afford to lose money to inefficient hiring or lost productivity. When it comes to medical practices, evaluating productivity and turnover is key to reducing spending and maximizing the...
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7 Must-Have Skills for a B2B Tech Services Firm Marketing Team
When it comes to effectively marketing professional services, many technology services firms find the process of building a strategy significantly easier than deploying that strategy. That is because even the simplest, most straightforward marketing strategy requires a wide range of skills to execute. So, what are the requisite skills for marketing a tech services firm effectively? What...
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The Predictive Indicators of Leaders With High Potential
In recent years, the "9-box" has become a nearly universal template for identifying high potential ("hipo") leaders, thanks in part to its highly publicized usage at GE under CEO Jack Welch in the 1990s. However, this template provides absolutely no guidance on how to define "high potential." Most organizations define it as "the potential to reach a certain level (e.g., vice president)...
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10 Completely Remote Companies Hiring Right Now
Remote work may be the future in the job market, but there's no reason you can't start getting in on the action now. Given that more and more job seekers are looking for flexible and/or remote opportunities – and more and more employers are offering such opportunities – remote work resource Remote.co has compiled a list of 10 fully remote organizations hiring remote workers right...
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Why You Attract the 'Wrong' Companies, Part Two: The Solution
Earlier this week, I outlined some of the reasons why talented job seekers often attract attention from the wrong kinds of companies. Today, I will focus on the solution to this problem. Simply put, the solution is for your to be clear about what you want and what you can bring to the table. When you're on a job search, you need clear intentions and a desired outcome, while still...
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Science Says It's Time to Ditch the 40-Hour Work Week [Infographic]
The 40-Hour Work Week In the 19th and early 20th centuries, workers around the globe, particularly in the United States, fought arduously for their right to the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour workweek. These standards were eventually codified in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937, marking a significant milestone for labor rights. However, society and the nature of work have drastically...
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5 Industry Experts on How Technology Will Affect the Future of Recruitment
Recently, MightyRecruiter put together a compilation of interviews with recruiting-industry influencers. Because I'm a guy who publishes a lot about technology, I took the liberty of sifting through this "2017 Hiring Trends and Predictions" eBook in order to find the most important insights into how technology will (or won't) change the future of recruiting. Here are a few of my...
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4 Unexpected Places You Might Find Your Next Hire
When recruiting, most companies immediately turn to the old standby methods of finding talent – job board advertisements, connecting with others via LinkedIn, and scoping out institutions like universities in the community. While that might be all your company needs to build a team, it's always worth spicing up your recruiting game with a little creativity, especially now that the...
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Why You Continue to Attract the 'Wrong' Companies – Even Though You Have a Lot to Offer
Because I've recently been doing freelance work with Recruiter.com, I literally see dozens of resumes each and every day. Before I attempt to shake readers awake with my words, let me state for the record that I understand with every fiber of my being why people are making these poor choices. I spent years experiencing the same feelings and making the same poor choices during my own...
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Minimize the Cost of Employee Turnover. Hire a Virtual Assistant.
There are many benefits to hiring an in-house employee, but cost isn't typically one of them. For small and midsize businesses, the costs associated with a full-time employee can be a deterrent to hiring, even when the current staff is stretched thin and business is growing. Unfortunately, it's even more damaging to a business's bottom line to lose an employee. The Cost of Employee...
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If You Have a Good Hiring Process, You Don't Need Interviews
Last week, we published an interview with author, speaker, and entrepreneur Evan Carmichael. That interview focused on his book, Your One Word, but toward the end, Carmichael and I got into a discussion about his approach to hiring. We didn't think it fit with the overall theme of the interview, but we also felt his insights were highly valuable. Today, we're presenting those...
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4 Steps to Help Leaders Kick Fear to the Curb
There's a rule of business known by leaders far and wide: "To succeed, you have to take risks." Leaders may repeat the mantra often, but many still fall into the trap of avoiding risks because of the sting of prior failures and the fear of facing new ones. Sometimes, a leader thinks they see a failure coming – even before taking the risk – so they attempt to avoid the situation...
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Money Isn't a Core Value: Evan Carmichael on Building Startups That Matter
Entrepreneur, speaker, and author Evan Carmichael might be a well-known business expert today, but his initial foray into the startup world wasn't an immediate success. When Carmichael and two of his friends started a biotech software company at the tender age of 19, they didn't rocket to success right away. "We sucked at the start," Carmichael says. "We were making $300 a month." But...
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Your Water Privileges Will Be Revoked: A Lesson in Bad Leadership
Years ago, during a particularly hot and humid summer, I was concerned about people in the factory. So I told the factory supervisor to see to it that plenty of bottled water was on hand. That seemed to be working well ... until someone told me their water "privileges" had been suspended. Now, first of all, I wouldn't consider providing drinking water to employees in a hot factory a...
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When Color Blindness Gets in the Way of Your Career Dreams
At some point, pretty much everyone wanted to grow up to be a police officer, a fighter pilot, a firefighter, or a doctor. Something no kid ever imagines is that a common medical issue could get in the way of those childhood dreams. Eight percent of men and 0.5 percent of women, or about 12 million Americans, are at least partially color blind. Unfortunately, the condition can impact...
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Chatbots in Recruiting: What You Need to Know
If you have ever booked a flight, bought a product online, or needed help from customer service, it's likely you've crossed paths with a chatbot. These automated systems have helped streamline quite a few tasks for consumers and associates alike. Could the same be said for industries outside of customer service? Here's what you need to know about chatbots and the future of...
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6 Dirty Little Secrets of Recruitment
The world of agency recruitment is a strange one. Recruiting employees on behalf of a company is an exciting process to be part of, but in this intermediary position, you often get exposed to the dirty little secrets companies strive to conceal. There are many unethical practices still embedded in recruiting and hiring today, and I'd like to shed some light on some of the main issues...
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Should You Only Work With Likeminded People?
This year has certainly started off on an interesting foot. I don't know about you, but for me, surfing social media used to be a relaxing activity. I learned about engagements, saw baby photos, and watched cat videos. Lately, however, it's filled with opposing views and tension – on all sides of every issue. It's exhausting. I have friends on both sides of the aisle – and some from...
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The Central Office Is Dying. Long Live the Remote Workforce!
The era of the desk-based workplace is coming to an end. For a long time, work was a location. "Going to work" is still a common way to talk about it. In the past, you needed to meet people, talk in person, and exchange physical goods if you wanted to work, but these things are becoming less and less necessary. In fact, a recent survey of remote workers shows that 91 percent of them...
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How to Respond to the Salary Question During Your Job Search
Sometimes, when you're in talks with a recruiter, you may reach a point where they say, "We can't proceed without getting your current salary." It's tough, because you might be excited about the company and you don't want to appear uncooperative, but at the same time, you might not feel comfortable sharing this information. As someone who has been on all three sides of the table...
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It's Never Too Late to Start Appreciating Your Employees
As we demonstrated earlier in the week, one of the common threads uniting top-performing companies across industries is that they often make employee appreciation a key piece of their strategies. When leaders and managers take the time to regularly recognize and reward their employees for jobs well done, the bottom line gets a boost. But perhaps you're a leader or manager at an...
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Why Competition Isn't Always a Great Workplace Motivator
Does employee competition have a place in the office? Depends on whom you ask. Proponents of competitive work environments say that competition provides a necessary challenge that pushes employees beyond their comfort zones. Opponents argue that competition puts undue stress on employees and fosters negative feelings among team members. While some top performers may thrive on competition,...
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LinkedIn Has a New Layout – Have You Noticed?
While often the butt of jokes, especially among millennials, LinkedIn is an incredible resource for marketing your skills and for networking with past, current, and potential employers, coworkers, contacts, and clients. Roughly 90 percent of professional recruiters utilize LinkedIn not only to identify potential employees but also to contact and screen them prior to interviews. With so many...
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8 Hiring Stats That Will Change the Way You Recruit
When it comes to creating recruitment processes or making hiring decisions, I like to do my research. So, in my fact-dependent fashion, I did a little refresher research before I began screening and interviewing last fall's round of interns and new talent at Red Branch Media. What I found out heavily influenced my approach to hiring, and I think it will influence yours, too. Here's what I...
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How to Manage Your Team Like a Superhero
When it comes to recruiting top talent, employee engagement and employee experience are more important than ever before. We live in a highly technological age where opinions and feedback are readily solicited and delivered in the blink of an eye. Social media has made it easy and effective for employees to discuss all aspects their organizations – the good, the bad, and the...
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Employee Appreciation 101: Showing Your Employees the Love Is Good for Business
This Friday, March 3, is Employee Appreciation Day in the United States. We hope all you leaders and managers have something special planned for your employees, who spend much of their weeks working hard to help your company achieve its goals! We also hope you don't think Employe Appreciation Day is the only time of year when you should stop to thank your employees for the awesome jobs...
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Build a 'Talent Operating System' to Attract and Retain the Best Members of the Multigenerational Workforce
Today, the workforce is undergoing serious demographic shifts. Baby boomers are retiring. Generation X-ers and millennials are moving into top spots in the corporate world. Generation Z-ers will soon occupy the majority of entry level positions in the workforce. The needs and wants of each generation vary, which means recruiting and human resources must evolve if employers want to attract...
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8 Ways to Be a Better Multitasker [Infographic]
Like most professionals today, you probably have a lot on your plate at any given time. That's why multitasking is one of the most critical skills you (or anyone else) can have. But multitasking isn't exactly easy. It can help you save time and meet deadlines, but it can also lead to more errors, difficulty concentrating, and procrastination. What's a busy professional to do? It's...
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No More Excuses for Lack of Boardroom Diversity
"There just aren't that many women qualified to sit in the boardroom." That's the most common excuse given by executives when asked about the gender disparity in the C-suite and the boardroom. That may have been true at one point, but in 2017 that excuse no longer holds water. The truth is an expansive pool of qualified women ready to step into top corporate roles exists, according to...
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The Silence of the Managers: How the Lack of Feedback Drives Turnover and Disengagement
Only one thing truly disturbs the minds of employees, and that is when their managers are silent – meaning they offer no feedback or guidance. Just thinking about it can make your skin crawl! Feedback is so important to employees that, when they don't get it, they are likely to search for employment elsewhere. Feedback – or its lack – can also impact employee performance. According...
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Will 2017 Spur Your Employees to Seek New Opportunities?
We're a couple of months into the new year, and many people have abandoned their resolutions already. However, there's one resolution that might stick – and it's one that employers should pay attention to. According to a WorkSphere survey from Spherion Staffing, 62 percent of American workers are planning to make changes in their professional lives. While some of these people are looking...
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For Optimal Employee Engagement, It's Time to Go Full Cycle
In human capital, we seem to have forgotten that those whom we support are integrated and coherent humans. Our approach is disjointed, often segmented across multiple third-party providers. The last time you changed jobs, was the experience smooth and integrated? Maybe you worked with a contract recruiter at first. Onboarding – if there was any at all – was handled by another external...
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Why Employee Engagement Starts With Well-Being
Employee well-being doesn't get attention from many executive leaders. In part, that's because leaders think more about the work the company does and less about the people who deliver on that work. As long as results keep rolling in, it's easy to forget that behind every employee ID number is a person with real concerns and problems that can impact their performance in myriad ways that can be...
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Want a Job That Makes You Happy? Find the Right Coworkers
If you're looking for a new job, I bet one of your top priorities is making sure it's a job you love. Your job search may have been triggered by the fact that you've found yourself in a job you don't care for, and now you're ready to make a change. You don't want to end up in this situation again. So, how do you make sure you land a job you love? It starts with prioritizing what's important...
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5 Biggest Social Media Mistakes That Could Cost You the Job Interview
Welcome to Recruiter QA, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers! Have a question jobs data 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: What's one social media snafu you've seen a candidate pull that made you reconsider their qualifications? How can...
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The Extinction of the Traditional Workforce
Last year saw rapid growth in the freelance economy. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. freelance workforce is now 15.5 million strong. More encouraging still are the findings of a study by Intuit, in which it is estimated that the American freelance workforce will have reached 60 million people by 2020. If all of this seems a bit unbelievable, consider that 40...
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'Artists Are Hardwired to Run the Best Businesses': Alexis Fedor on the Business of Art and the Art of Business
Ah, the stereotype of the starving artist. As a poet married to a visual artist, I know it quite well. You probably do, too, even if you're not an artist yourself. But just because the stereotype seems to have lodged itself perpetually in the zeitgeist, that doesn't mean it's necessarily accurate. Despite what many of us may believe about the opposition between art and commerce, it turns out...
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5 Payoffs of Effective Performance Coaching
"Coaching is unlocking a person's potential to maximize their own performance. It's helping them to learn rather than teaching them." – Tim Gallwey, author Performance coaching, defined by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management as "an ongoing process which helps build and maintain effective employee and supervisory relationships," is a way of leveling the playing field. When...
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Fixated on Pedigree, Recruiters Overlook Skilled Developers
One could argue convincingly that education is more accessible than ever, thanks to the many free online learning platforms that exist today. This democratization of education is driving tremendous shifts in the labor market – especially among coders, developers, and software engineers. "Twenty years ago, to be an amazing engineer, you probably had to have a good pedigree, because the...
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Educational Partnerships Necessary to Close STEM Skills Gap
More organizations in more industries than ever before are now leveraging big data in order to achieve company goals. That also means more organizations are in need of STEM workers who understand how to interpret and use big data. Unfortunately, the high demand for STEM talent is leading to a growing skills gap between what employers need and what talent on the employment market can offer....
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Today's Students Are Counting on Tomorrow's Workplace Diversity
Tensions in the United States may be reaching a boiling point. Civil rights protests are shutting down traffic nationwide. Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump's chief advisor, has been labeled a white supremacist by prominent figures in Washington, D.C. A wall between the United States and Mexico – once a fanciful campaign promise – is quickly becoming a reality. Millions of women and...
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Research Shows the Current Candidate Experience Landscape Needs Improvement
For years, candidates have been complaining about the same things – the cumbersome job application process, the redundant entering of data after uploading a resume, and even the lack of communication once an application has been submitted. Here we are in 2017, and these issues still exist. Candidates are still unhappy with their experiences with employers. Unfortunately, many companies...
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The Future of Recruiting Is Mobile
It wasn't even half a decade ago that top-of-the-line smartphones were out of the question for most. Today, we reach for our phones as a reflex. Faced with an unanswered question, a moment of free time, or virtually any unmet need, we turn to our smartphones. Because we shop, pay, talk, meet, and learn on our phones, it only makes sense that we would start to look for new jobs on our...
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How to Keep Your Top Health Tech Employees Happy
It takes a special kind of person to work in the health IT world. To be successful in the field requires a unique balance of empathy and the drive to keep up with the fast-paced world of technology. The perks and benefits that motivate health IT employees are often different from the perks and benefits other employees look for. In order to attract and retain top health tech talent, it's...
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5 Tips to Make Your Remote Sales Reps Connected and Successful
Together, new technologies and changing philosophies on work/life balance have created an increasingly mobile workforce. In a survey of business leaders at the Global Leadership Summit in 2014, more than a third of respondents said half their full-time employees would be working remotely by 2020. A quarter of respondents said more than 75 percent of their employees would not be working in...
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