What Should Candidates Be Doing More Of

What Should Candidates Be Doing More Of What else can we do? is probably one of the most common questions your candidates are asking you. There is always the risk of them doing too much so how do you make sure they should be doing more of the right things in order to land that job? Well this week our panel of experts share their knowledge on this and I think youll agree, its pretty sound advice. Kerri-Ann Hargreaves Build up a relationship with your recruiter. Invest time in getting to know each other. Build Know, Like Trust. A good recruiter won’t risk presenting your CV to a client unless they are absolutely sure that you are right for the job. The same should be said for how you feel about a recruiter presenting your CV, you want your recruiter to be an advocate of you. Kerri-Ann Hargreaves,  Director, H2 Consultancy. Jeff Berger Candidates should demonstrate their potential on their CV and during an interview. When TopCV, our CV-writing business, and job board CV-Library asked nearly 200 UK employers “Which of the following is most important in a candidate?”, 62% cited potential as the number-one factor, beating out experience (35%) and education (2%). To show employers you have the potential they value, look for opportunities to showcase your problem-solving skills and your willingness to develop new skills throughout the job-search process. Jeff Berger, CEO and Founder, Talent Inc. Lysha Holmes Definitely staying loyal to one recruiter- especially in skill short markets.Trust your recruiter and they will focus their energy on finding you your right role! And being honest- no need to ghost, or be deceitful ever. Recruiters are humans too and they deserve to be treated with courtesy and respect. Lysha Holmes, Recruiter of Recruiters, Qui Recruitment. Paul Wolfe Research consistently shows that internal referrals are the top source of hires, meaning those personal relationships can have significant payoffs. Networking skills may come easy for some, but this is rare. It is important for candidates to network as much as possible in order to build those skills and feel more confident at events. Online networking is a powerful tool, but there’s nothing like face-to-face interaction. If your goal is to land a new job, the networking events you’ll find the most productive are ones that include a diverse mix of job candidates, industry representatives, recruiters, and companies seeking talent. Paul Wolfe, Indeed Senior Vice President of Global Human Resources. Rebecca Fraser Building their online brand and not just connecting with strangers. Provide value to your network such as writing blogs, commenting in forums, demonstrating your expertise and show value to your brand. Rebecca Fraser, Digital Experience and Learning Manager. Ben Martinez Networking and talking with people who are doing work they want to do. Instead of asking someone if they are hiring. Change the question and ask if they know someone who is looking for their skills. Ben Martinez, Principal Founder, Ramp Talent. Jo Cresswell Researching the company ahead of any interview. Not just the company’s website and media presence, but what current and previous employees have said about the company. That way, be prepared with real world examples to discuss with the hiring manager at the interview. This will not only show your commitment, but will also provide an opportunity for you to get answers to any concerns that your research has uncovered. Jo Cresswell, Corporate Communications Manager, Glassdoor. Darain Faraz Candidates should always be looking for ways to improve their network. A narrow network can keep you disconnected from opportunity. Survey data from LinkedIn and Coleman Parkes shows that 48% of businesses are focussing on sourcing candidates via recommendations in their network in the face of a tightening labour market. A big priority for LinkedIn has been to study and understand the scale of the Network Gap and how LinkedIn as a platform can be used to help make sure that people with equal talent have equal access to opportunity. Candidates on the platform can use tools like LinkedIn Learning, and join groups within their industry to improve their network. Darain Faraz, Careers Expert, LinkedIn. Allan Leung Asking additional questions relevant to the role and to the organization outside of salary and benefits. Allan Leung, Lead Talent Acquisition Advisor, HCSS. Chris Murdock Candidates should practice more patience (humanity in general needs to have more patience), but balance the patience with persistence. Remember, the candidate may be one out of hundreds who were contacted, so you must be patient with the process. But, because of so many candidates, if you want to be remembered, you’ll also need to be persistent without being annoying. It’s a delicate balance! Chris Murdock  is Senior Partner and Co-Founder at IQTalent Partners

Sympathy Wont Help You

Sympathy Won’t Help You Embed from Getty Imageswindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'r10f-UqJTKhFT8Rg9lODxg',sig:'EWXqEvuuL0ou-TlvTpCtSbKyuRQ-r_KoRHY8pq4Vqgg=',w:'339px',h:'509px',items:'78775690',caption: false ,tld:'com',is360: false })}); Brené Brown is a researcher who has specialized in studying shame for most of her career. Her recent book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isnt): Making the Journey from What Will People Think? to I Am Enough covers the topic of shame and how to develop resilience. She writes about how empathy can help heal feelings of shame by showing people they aren’t alone. Sympathy, on the other hand, separates us even more. Brené Brown writes about her experience of sharing a story that positioned her as a less-than-perfect mother with a young couple. Their reaction made her feel terrible. “When I was done, they shook their heads in unison and looked at me with pity. She leaned toward me and said, “Oh, my God, that’s so horrible. I can’t imagine doing that. I’m so sorry.” Their sympathy slapped me across the face. Like all sympathy, it said, “I’m over here and you’re over there. I’m sorry for you and I’m sad for you. AND, while I’m sorry that happened to you, let’s be clear: I’m over here.” This is not compassion.” The flip side of this is the person who seeks sympathy. I’ve met many job seekers over the years who reveled in their tales of woe. They didn’t respond to offers of help, and they almost never followed through on advice they received.   What they wanted was sympathy. Brown writes, “One sentiment underlying sympathy seeking is often “Feel sorry for me because I’m the only one this is happening to” or “my situation is worse than everyone else’s.” This naturally creates disconnection and separation. People seeking sympathy are not looking for empathy or evidence of shared experiencesâ€"they are searching for confirmation of their uniqueness.” If you have someone like this in your life, you know how hard it is to feel compassionate for them. Brown writes, “It’s not unusual to feel resentful or dismissive when someone requests our sympathy. When people look for sympathy, it feels like a no-win situation. On the one hand they are telling us that they have it worse than anyone and no one can understand, but on the other hand they are looking for our validation.” If you find yourself using phrases like “You have no idea how hard this is” or competing for who has the hardest/ most unfair / most victimized story, you’re in danger of alienating the people who want to help you the most. Another dangerous practice, Brown writes, is starting any sentence with “At least.” “At least you had a great job for several years. I’ve been working crappy menial jobs since I moved here.” “At least you qualify for unemployment. I got denied when I tried to file.” “At least you have a husband at home bringing in income. Try making it on your own.” Brown writes that “at least” is never an empathetic response. “This “at least” response is primarily about our own discomfort. “At leasting someone is equivalent to shutting her down.” Shame is isolating and debilitating. When you experience losing a job or being out of work for an extended period, it’s natural to feel sorry for yourself. But asking someone else to feel sorry for you is not the answer. For guidance on practicing empathy versus sympathy, read this post.

Personal Branding Interview Steve Farber - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Steve Farber - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke with Steve Farber, who is the president of Extreme Leadership and author of the new book Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership.   In this interview, Steve talks about helping other people instead of self-promotion, why personal brands dont scale, his leadership cycle theory, and networking. A lot of people think personal branding is only about self-promotion.   What are your thoughts on this, taking into account youre all about leading/helping other people? A personal brand thats only about self-promotion is just another way of saying its a lousy brand. Think of it this way: A company/product/services brand effectiveness is determined by its ability to convey unique value to the consumer. Cokes brand would be worthless if its promise was something like, Drink Coke so we can make money.   The same is true for your personal brand: it shouldnt say, Do business with me because Im so awesome; it should say, heres what Ill do for you. In other words, if your personal brand doesnt convey the essence of how youre going to help other people, youve missed the boat altogether. Personal brands dont scale, which is why teamwork skills are highly applauded and encouraged in the workforce and for entrepreneurs leading a group of employees.   What are some leadership skills you recommend people develop? The most significant leadership skill, in my estimation, is the one that requires your putting to use all your other leadership skills, wisdom and experience. And its the one skill that does make your brand scalable: your ability to create and develop other leaders who go on to become better leaders than you are.   The truly great leaders at workand in life in generalbecome so because they cause others to be greater than themselves. And if you do that in a conscious, intentional way, the greater leaders that you help to create will go on and do the very same thing for the people around them, and so forth. Its the proverbial ripple effect. Thats leadership scalability, and if leadership is part of your personal brand, youve extended your brands impact well beyond your own immediate time-and-space-bound influence. Can you explain your leadership cycle:   Expand Yourself, Give Yourself, and Replicate Yourself? If youre going to take the idea of making others greater than yourself seriously (I call this practice GTY, for obvious reasons), you have to start, paradoxically by focusing on yourself. You have to Expand Yourself in order to have more personal resources to invest in and give to others. You need a deep and expansive sense of who you are, and you have to be getting better and better, more competent, smarter, more experienced and more connected to others all the time. All for the purpose of Giving Yourself, because the real payoff comes not in the hoarding of the resources, knowledge, and experience youve expanded, but in the giving of those things to aid in anothers personal and leadership development. And, finally, you Replicate Yourself by getting the expressed, verbal commitment from others that theyll go out and do the same for the people in their lives.   Kind of like the pay it forward idea, but applied specifically to human development. When it comes to networking, what is your take on giving value to others without asking for anything in return?   Why do most people fail to capitalize on this gesture? We probably fail because we focus on the wrong perspective. We focus on the gold instead of the golden rule. This do-unto-others sentiment, otherwise known as the ethic of reciprocity exists in literally every religion and productive school of thought on the planet. (Including, by the way, humanistic atheism). Everybody says it in their own way, but its clear that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and atheists all agree that human beings should do good for other human beings simply because its the right thing to do. And nowhere in any of these traditions will you find a footnote saying, does not apply Monday through Friday between the hours of 9 and 5 or in any situation where a paycheck is involved.   Butagain, paradoxicallythe act of giving without an expectation of quid pro quo is what usually brings about the greatest material returns. Throughout your career, looking back, what would you have done differently and why? I would have started practicing the art of Greater Than Yourself a long time ago. Im proud to say that Ive helped a good number of people in my career, but I wonder how many more truly world-class, world-changing leaders I could have had a hand in developing if Id have done my small part in perpetuating this GTY ripple 20 years ago.   Thats a question thatll never be answered, I guess.   Ask me again in another 20 years. Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Incorporatedâ€"an organization devoted to the cultivation and development of Extreme Leaders in the business community. His best-selling book, The Radical Leap: A Personal Lesson in Extreme Leadership was recently named one of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time. His second book, The Radical Edge: Stoke Your Business, Amp Your Life, and Change the World, was hailed as a playbook for harnessing the power of the human spirit. His newest book, Greater Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True Leadership, has just been published by Doubleday/Random House.   He was director of service programs at TMI, an international training consultancy, and then worked for 6 years as Vice President and Official Mouthpiece (that’s what it said on his business card) of The Tom Peters Company.

Top 10 Screening Mistakes made by Recruiters [INFOGRAPHIC]

Top 10 Screening Mistakes made by Recruiters [INFOGRAPHIC] Recruiters can make mistakes too! Here are the top 10 screening mistakes made by recruiters, as reported by Resoomay in an interesting infographic. Takeaways: 79% of business hired candidates that had exaggerated their CVs/résumés, whereas  ignoring an overqualified candidate can cause harm, as there is never a perfect match. Too many recruiters dont ask the right questions in interviews they ask superficial questions instead that waste time however an interview only increases the chance of finding the best candidate by 2%, so should not be the only aspect of recruitment. Recruiters need to get a clear idea of respondents personalities or  temperaments  before interviewing, and also need to check references!  25% of recruiters dont check references which is a BIG mistake. A good  communication  strategy between your hiring team is crucial to gain a perfect recruitment result. Taking a candidate on simply from the résumé because of lack of time, can increase turnover costs and cause more harm than good. A vague job description means more job applicants, and recruiters need to ensure they sell the company to the candidate to make them excited and interested. RELATED:  How Employers Use Social Media To Screen Applicants Featured image: Shutterstock

6 Things to Avoid to Keep Your Employees Happy At Work CareerMetis.com

6 Things to Avoid to Keep Your Employees Happy At Work Everyone wants to enjoy their time at work, especially considering it takes up, on average, a massive 92,120 hours of our life. Creating a positive environment to work in, and in turn, keeping your employees happy can be tough.As a business owner and leader, you’ve got a lot on your mind, like how to keep spending down, hiring another member of staff to keep up with demand, and what exactly should you be doing on social media?evalAmongst all these things, it is important to remember that your staff is the driving force of your business. Keeping them happy will prove majorly beneficial for the success of the business and keep them with the company longer.There are a few things that you as a boss should avoid doing to make sure everyone enjoys coming to the office.1) Avoid Public ShamingYou discover that a staff member has made a mistake which ended up costing the business, so you need to discuss this incident with them.You could either:Call them out for their blunder in front of the whole office, and hope that they will be so embarrassed, they never dare make another error again.Or you could speak to them privately about the matter to find out what went wrong, and work out how to avoid such an instance happening again.Which of the two do you think would be more beneficial? Which would your employee prefer?The first will create a very uncomfortable environment for your staff, damage the confidence of the person in question, and could even promote bullying in the workplace.evalWho wants to work in an office like that?Using the second approach, you will demonstrate that you are aware of the problem, and want to work with your employees to ensure it doesn’t happen again. You may be firm, but showing support and a genuine interest in their improvement and progression will help soften the blow and encourage development.They want to avoid a repeat as much as you do, and addressing the issue in a nurturing setting rather than publicly shaming will produce far more p ositive results.2) Be Constructive With Your CriticismWe all want to be recognized and rewarded for our hard work, but sometimes the attention instead falls on our mistakes.evalNegative feedback isn’t fun for anyone, but sometimes it is needed.When you are required to give negative feedback, make sure you only do so in a constructive way. Doing so will make the process far more bearable and can even become positive.To make your criticism constructive, try these things:a) Focus on the situation itself, and not the person. Doing this shifts the criticism away from the person and instead onto the situation or action itself. This way it won’t seem like you are accusing or attacking them, making them more receptive to what you have to say.b) Offset negative with positive. We’ve all heard of the feedback sandwich and know the benefits of adding positive affirmations to negative feedback. For example, telling a staff member “You are very skilled at developing strong campaigns for t he company, and I’d love you to progress your communication skills to the same level” will assure them that they are performing well in certain areas, but that you’d like to see improvement in others.c) Get the full story. Make sure you haven’t made any assumptions; get all the details first. Ask for your employee to explain how they see the situation and evaluate this against how things appear to you. It could be that there has been a miscommunication along the lines, and you’ll avoid coming across as accusing.d) Make your feedback actionable. If you are suggesting ways to improve something that has already happened, your staff can’t put them into action.eval Instead, give feedback that they can go away and work on. Telling them “The piece you wrote for our last client was too formal and passive” won’t do any good, so instead try “Your writing tends to be quite formal, and written in a passive voice. I’d like you to work on making it more relaxed and informal, and writing in an active voice”. This way they know exactly how to improve.Your employees won’t appreciate you telling them something wasn’t good enough, and then being left to wonder why, or what they should do to improve.This won’t help them grow or progress in the business, or in their career, and they could eventually look for this support at another company.3) Accept Feedback From Your StaffGoing on from the last point, as a leader you also need to be willing to accept feedback from your team.evalWhether the feedback is personal or related to a project or aspect of the business, it is invaluable.You would want a client to tell you how you could improve, so why is it any different coming from your employees? Both forms of feedback are equally as valuable.It could be that an idea you had just isn’t working, and a team member needs to relay this to you. They may have thoughts on how to improve on your original idea.Instead of getting defensive, thank them for taking the time to try out your method, and for letting you know that it doesn’t bring the results you hoped. Welcome their improvement, and ask how they think it will impact the results.There is always the chance that the person giving you feedback isn’t very good at doing so with tact. It would be very easy to lose your cool and get defensive, but this will only cause problems.Instead, listen carefully to what they have to say. Once they have finished, ask for their suggestion as to what could be done instead so that you can come to an actionable solution.Making sure your employees feel listened to supports the fact that you appreciate them and their role within the company.4) Don’t Redirect BlameWe all make mistakes, and we must all be held accountable for them. This applies to those in charge as well.If a problem has arisen as a result of something you did or failed to do previously, it’s time to take ownership.Trying to shift the blame onto one of your teams also involved in the process won’t look good, and it’s likely that everyone already knows the mistake is yours. You will look like you are running away.By accepting that you are at fault, your team will respect you more for it. You can then work together to resolve the issue.Working with your team is incredibly important. Telling them to ‘deal with it’ themselves will not be appreciated, especially if you were the cause of the problem. You’ll instead promote higher stress levels as they try to clean up the mess without your support.Use this as an opportunity to learn from, and work out how such mistakes can be avoided in the future. You can then move forward as a team, with a better understanding of how to deal with and prevent the same mistake from happening.5) Don’t Take Personal Frustrations Out On Your StaffBefore leaving for work, you had a massive argument with your partner. It’s left you in a bad mood, and your temper has been simmering on your commute to the office. You need to let your frustrations out.You get to work and decide that one of your sales reps hasn’t been pulling their weight, and you lose your temper at them in front of everyone.This creates a lot of tension throughout the office for the rest of the day. Everyone will be on edge because you are in a bad mood, and will try to avoid you at any cost.Chances are that if you had taken the time to try and calm down, and remembered that your employees have nothing to do with your argument from the morning, the whole situation could have been avoided.In your angry state, you probably blew out of proportion the fact that the sales rep only just scraped the goal you set them last Tuesday. They still hit the goal, but now they’ve been left feeling victimized, confused, and embarrassed.This isn’t the way to run your office, and won’t promote a positive working environment for your team.Everyone has bad days, and things are likely to go wrong in your personal life. However, you should remember that these things aren’t the fault of your staff, and they also go through similar issues themselves.If you’ve come to work in a bad mood because of personal frustration, take some extra time to yourself at the start of the day.Grab a coffee and drink it slowly while at your desk. Watch some cat videos to help you destress. Do something that will help you refocus on the day ahead.If you feel you need to bring up an issue with someone in your team, rethink your approach first. Make sure you’re tackling the issue in a calm, constructive manner, instead of blowing your top.6) Create A Work/Personal Life BalanceIf you get on well with your employees and feel you can discuss the events happening in your personal life with them, you can bond as a team based on your interests.However, there is a line that can be crossed, and you can bring too much of your personal life to work.If you are going through a tough situation at home, discussing it with people you trust can help lift a weight fr om your chest.However, don’t get a staff member to record an argumentative phone call between you and your soon-to-be ex-partner, so you have evidence for a court custody battle. You’ve crossed the line and left it way behind you at this point and made a very uncomfortable situation for your employee.Alternatively, spending a whole morning on the phone to your internet supplier trying to book someone to go to your home and fix your router isn’t professional, and sets a terrible example for your staff members.Calls like this are for lunch breaks or after work, not during working hours. How will seeing this motivate others to work hard?If you are the only one allowed to make personal phone calls, you are creating a double standard that could cause resentment in the office.You are there to work just as much as your team is, so build an appropriate and professional work/personal life balance. If you neglect this, the result could be a negative environment that your staff will want to escape.

Blogging Isnt Just Onesided

Blogging Isnt Just Onesided Ive been readingread Punk Rock HRs blog for awhile and yesterdays post grabbed my attention. First, I love her edge and the fact she doesnt hold anything back. It is real. Second, her blog provides beyond-the-obvious HR insights. And third, she has a following of commenters. What I enjoyed so muchabout reading her blog was the fact that she engaged the reader. They, in turn, provided their feedback and comments, some quite funny. Check our her blog to see an example of some of the comments. GL Hoffmans What Would Dad Say, Jason Albas JibberJobber and the other great blogs all get great comments and that, in my opinion, makes them worth reading. Not only do I get the bloggers side, I also learn from what the readers have written. I have a pulse on the issue being discussed. Onesided blogging is pundit-like. Good blogs provide a forum for sharing. The topic of Punk Rock HRs post wasaboutthe validity of career advice experts. Is there really such a thing? Blogs could just become the next newspaper, with instant Editorials. The news is current and the comments are too. Please help make this a rich and rewarding blog by providing your comments and I pledge to respond in kind! Happy reading and remember, it is nice to share.

Types of Resume Writing Services

Types of Resume Writing ServicesIf you are seeking a way to improve your chances of landing that job you want, then you may want to consider getting some type of resume writing services. Whether you are looking for one service or many, it is important to remember that you should only hire a service that is going to help you get the job you really want. Here are some tips on how to find the best one.First, you need to make sure that the company that you are looking at is a reputable service. It is not a good idea to go with the first company that you see. Instead, you should first research the company to make sure that it is legitimate and will be able to help you land the job you are after.The next thing you need to do is to compare the companies that you are looking at to make sure that they are comparable. The way to compare the companies is to read the information on the websites of each company and look at the work that they offer. A company that is going to offer you the job you want should have something good to offer you.Another good thing that you should consider is to compare the prices of the companies that you are considering. You should always look at the company's prices to make sure that you are going to be able to afford the price that they are charging. You also need to consider if the company is offering any types of samples that you can use in order to get the job you want.It is also important to make sure that the company has the right amount of experience. In order to determine this, you need to look at their portfolios. Make sure that you are seeing a portfolio that is going to help you see if the company is qualified to help you land the job you want.An important factor that you need to consider is how the company can help you get the job you want. You should consider this when looking at the resume writing services. You need to know that the company is going to help you get the job you want and not only just put out the information that y ou would already know.Finally, it is important to consider the credentials of the company as well. This is very important because you want to make sure that the company is qualified to help you get the job you want. Also, if the company is not qualified, you should not waste your time or money on them.When considering the different types of resume writing services, you should always look for the right one. Do not jump from one company to another because there are many more out there that can help you land the job you want. Take your time to find the right one so that you can focus on your work instead of worrying about what type of resume writing services you are going to have to deal with.