The Principles of Being a Better Recruiter

The Principles of Being a Better Recruiter I realized, as I sat here 2 days before my deadline (dont leave it so late next time Jeff! Editor), that I really had no excuse to why I hadn’t written anything. “C’mon Newman,” I said to myself. “You’re the People’s Recruiter! Oh, and Jorgen has you with a deadline. Think of something!” I know why I haven’t written anything. A lot of my earlier work is me trying to turn negativity into positive vibes making the best out of crappy situations, trying to find meaning within an industry that can be gut wrenching, soul crushing and, at its worst, one step below running down puppies in a parking lot. However, I happen to be very happy at my new job, even with its challenges. I just moved from NY to San Francisco, and I absolutely love this city. Despite the fact that I cannot find an apartment (but, that is my fault credit issues, anyone?), I can’t complain too much. Every opportunity I have moved to in my career has been an improvement over what I was doing before. My move to Mobiquity has been one of the better ones. So, what could I write about? Improving your interview skills? How to be a better hunter beyond LinkedIn? How to improve your online presence? Comrades, the amazing people at the Undercover Recruiter have covered that without much I could add. I see my work here as adding a different level to the whole shebang we do 40+ (OKwho am I kidding? 60+) hours per week. I needed something from that zone of space. Then, I read an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit with John Perry Barlow. Mr. Barlow has always been a hero of mine. As a lyricist for the Grateful Dead, as a founder of the EFF, and as a member of Leary’s little Millbrook gang, his achievements are legend. All of them are things that are important to us as people, as members of the “Monkey Sphere”,  that we should live our lives to try and reach. However, I decided to pick a few that if we follow will make us better at our roles as recruiters. So, without further ado, a few tidbits, though I encourage you to read (and live, learn and love) them all. 1) Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun: Man, this is a great technique while recruiting, a reminder that we should be focused on our clients and our candidates and not what WE want. Personally, I try to turn my “I” statements into questions. Take “I think this is a great offer” and make it into, “How do you feel about the offer?” People who use the pronoun “I” reveal a lot about themselves.  Nothing during the recruiting process is about YOU. We are the facilitators; the bridge that helps everything happen. We are the wizard behind the curtain of making organizations amazing. RELATED: NEWSFLASH: A Recruiter is Not a Job Finder 2) Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change: I know I have written about this before, in different ways. You cannot close a placement. You cannot shorten a commute, make more money magically manifest itself, or fix a company with a shitty reputation. Be open, be honest and be yourself. The rest will work itself out… or it wasn’t meant to be. 3) Never lie to anyone for any reason: (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.) What article have I written that doesn’t mention this? Go back and read all my articles if you don’t know how I feel about it. Even lies of omission in our business can be a very very dangerous road to take, too… It is not what you say, but how you say it! 4) Try not to forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong: Ask questions, question all the way to the top and then back down again. Do not assume a gap is someone sitting on the couch marathoning Orange is the New Black. Another way I like to phrase it is NEVER ASSUME. Presumptions, basing your decision on past experiences, assumptions etc etc… they are all dangerous roads to travel. Listen, learn and be open minded. 5) Be patient no matter what: Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up!NOW WAIT! The resume has been sent into the black hole of Human Resources (I feel weird about saying that now as I understand the black hole better being on this side but I have been there). The candidate who doesn’t call back. The day the office WiFi goes down and no work gets done by anyone. The “We want to make her an offer but we need the VPs signature, one she’s on vacation in Majorca with the Dursleys”. Patience, friends, we need it as recruiters. I love writing these articles, and could write a little paragraph for every single thing on Mr. Barlow’s list. It was difficult to stick to just 5. However, being 3 days behind my deadline (as opposed the 2 days before when I started this), I felt let’s tighten it up. I’d love to hear if any of his wisdom rang true for you, personally and/or professionally as well. Comments are always welcome!

5 steps to developing your resilience

5 steps to developing your resilience Your post just destroyed Melissas life.  This is the email I got from my friend Melissas fiance, Steven, who is now her ex-fiance. He did not like the post I wrote. Before you tell me that Im a terrible person for writing the post I want you to know that Melissas therapist read the post that same day and told her, Penelope saved your life. That post is the only thing that made Steven angry enough for you guys to call off the engagement. So, the truth is that Melissa and Steven were good together as long as there was nothing hard to decide. You dont really know if someone is good for you until there is something really hardlike telling Stevens mom that Melissa was not going to have a Catholic wedding. You dont really know someone until you know their level of resilience. People can fake emotional stability, but when life brings challenges, resilience is what allows you to maintain a sense of well-being when you deal with the challenge. There are five key characteristics of maintaining your resilience. 1. Developing a strong locus of control. This means that you feel that you can solve problems when they come your way. You have tools that reside in yourself and do not rely on external circumstances for efficacy. People reveal themselves when they are in trouble. You dont know how resilient you are until something bad happens. I remember when I was living in LA with my boyfriend and the Northridge earthquake hit. We woke up to our building moving like a ship in a storm. When it stopped, we were covered with books, in a pitch dark apartment. Everything broken. I remember my boyfriend just sitting there in bed. I said, Get up. Here are your shoes. Get up. Were going. I had to tell him everything. We had this relationship where he was the older guy earning the money and I was the hot, flighty, professional volleyball player, and it turned out that in an emergency, I was the one who could  function at a high level. That day changed how I saw him and how I saw myself. We really dont know ourselves at all until the stakes are high. Thats the silver lining of a crisis. 2. Maintain a sense of empathy. Melissa and Steven have a shared Google doc, titled Breakup. Melissa wears her engagement ring on her right hand like an escrow account, and she tells him shell give the ring back when she gets all her stuff out of his house. Good one, I tell her. She calls me from the closet of his house. She shuts the door so he cant hear. I tell her how I read that in crisis, if you have empathy for other people, you will have empathy for yourself and youll feel a stronger sense of control. Whatever, she says. She is not interested in my research. In the middle of packing up Melissas stuff, the Home Depot guy comes to Stevens house to measure for the cabinet veneers. Steven is stressed that the Home Depot guy will see he has walked into the middle of a breakup. So Melissa stops packing. Sits down in a chair shell be taking. Its so much easier to be accommodating of someones every wish when you know you are exiting their life for good in just a few days. Now Steven is picking the cabinets, and hes colorblind, so Melissa has to pick the cabinets that will, presumably, go to the next girl who moves in and says yes to a Catholic wedding. 3. Develop strong social connections. Melissa starts moving her stuff to a storage area while she looks for an apartment. She stays at the house of one of her friends who I like but will never write about because she would never want to be on the blog. I respect it when someone doesnt want to be on the blog. Its just that that was not the deal with Steven. He knew hed be on the blog like he knew that Melissa liked his dog better than she liked him. He saw both as challenges to overcome. Steven drives to work one day and finds Melissas chair on the street. He calls her: I think your chair fell out of your truck. He puts it in the bushes at the side of the road for Melissa to pick up after work. See? He is nice. Nice for someone else. Just not for Melissa. Melissa hangs out in her friends extra room, shopping on Craigslist. Having a friend to turn to is such a huge factor in someones resilience that the Journal of Social Medicine factors social connections into a patients overall health. Which means, of course, that you need to maintain close relationships when you are not in crisis. Thats a big part of a resiliencewhat you do outside of crisis. 4. Establish goals. When Melissa was deciding to leave Steven, she sort of left and then couldnt do it because she loves the house so much. She worked really hard on redecorating his house. When they finally break off the engagement, she immediately sets to redecorating a new apartment. Not that she has one. That will come. But meanwhile,  Melissa finds a sofa on Craigslist. She tells the person, Ill buy it. But can you deliver it to my storage unit? I just broke off my engagement and I dont have anywhere to live. The seller gives Melissa $150 off. Camaraderie. Cal Crow, director of the Center for Learning Connections, lists having goals as important in developing resilience. Moving past crisis requires you to stop looking at the past and look at the future. 5. See yourself as a survivor not a victim. You cant really feel that locus of control unless you feel power to take action. Which means you need to feel, almost immediately, that you have used your strength to survive something bad. Luckily, people see breaking off an engagement as a triumphant act. Averting a close call. And research shows this is probably an accurate assessment: If you have doubts before your wedding you are much less likely to have a lasting marriage, according to researchers at UCLA. This is true of people in general, but not people you work with. They dont care that you broke off an engagement, they just want you to get your work done. I used to think that if I had a breakdown softly, in my cube, on the phonewith a friend who I had not cried to in a while so had a bunch of patience stored up for meI used to think if I did that, then its not so bad to have a breakdown at work. But you know what happens when lower your voice so you dont bother your co-workers? They stop working so they can concentrate harder on listening. Because all whispers at work are scintillating. Which means that Melissa needs to keep going to work and acting like she is not a wreck. Positive psychology maven, Martin Seligman, says that a component of resilience is pervasivenessnot allowing a setback in one area to affect another. This is maybe the academic explanation for why you should hold it together at work. So when Melissa feels like crying at work, she pauses, takes a deep breath and buys something on Craigslist. She buys a brass bed. Its not good feng shui, I tell her. The brass is too high energy and there will no peace in your bed. And the headboard should be solid in order to provide stable, protective energy. I send her this link to bolster my argument. Thats okay, she says, I was thinking that I love my wedding dress so much, but I cant imagine wearing it with the next guy, so I could drape it over my headboard like a feng shui fix.

How to Market Effectively to Generation Z

How to Market Effectively to Generation Z Generation Z will make up about 20% of the workforce and 40% of consumers by 2020.    Here are 5 key differences between Generation Z and Millennials, and our perspective on how these differences will impact your business. Generation Z is More Entrepreneurial Entrepreneurship has been in decline in the US for several decades.    Generation Z may reverse that trend. Generation Z is 55% more likely than millennials to start a business.   What is driving this trend? Altitude’s Jeremy Finch explains: Recent reports have labeled Gen Z the “entrepreneurial generation” and highlighted their desire to forsake the corporate grind for their own startups. We found that while Gen Z like the idea of working for themselves, the majority are risk-averse, practical, and pragmatic. Their supposed entrepreneurialism is actually more of a survival mechanism than an idealist reach for status or riches. Your Take-Away Gen Z is equally as likely to become your competition as they are to become your employee. Be prepared to offer autonomy, flexibility, and fair financial compensation as part of your terms of employment if you want to have any hope of enticing these workers to your business. Generation Z is More Realistic Millennials, fairly or not, are forever branded as the entitled generation of the participation trophy. But, Millennials didn’t choose this path for themselves. It was a by-product of their upbringing. Millennials grew up in a time of financial prosperity. As did their parents â€" the Baby Boomers. Generation Z is coming to the workforce with a completely different perspective than their predecessors. Ryan Jenkins, an expert on the differences between Millennials and Generation Z, reveals: Seventy-seven percent of Generation Z expect to work harder than previous generations.    Millennials became optimistic thanks to their encouraging Baby Boomer parents and growing up in a time of prosperity and opportunity. Generation Z will be realistic thanks to their skeptical and straight-shooting Generation X parents and growing up in a recession. According to Pew Charitable Trusts, during the Great Recession, the median net worth of Generation Z’s parents fell by nearly 45 percent. Your Take-Away Give these young employees space and autonomy to shine. They are driven to work hard, so let them do that in their most productive way. Marketers, Gen Z is pragmatic and careful with their money. Make the value you offer very clear if you expect to make a sale. Generation Z Has a Shorter Attention Span While Millennials grew up as modern technology took hold, Generation Z has been saturated in it from day one. Deep Patel explains: Millennials are hard to keep engaged, but Gen Z’s attention is even more split. On average, millennials use three screens (and bounce between them intermittently). Gen Zers use five: smartphone, TV, laptop, desktop and tablet. Knowing this, it will be essential to capture attention quickly and to be present on multiple platforms to ensure that you make it through these filters. Patel lays it out: If you want them to click on your blog post, watch your video or like your Instagram photo, you need to help them understand what the content is about, why they should care and how it will help or entertain them. And you need to do it in eight seconds or less. This is an art, and it’s not easy. It’s why today’s best content creators are in such demand. Your Take-Away Getting the right message on the right platform at the right time will be key.    And keeping those messages consistent will also be important. Consistency starts with strong branding, including the company name and logo design, and continues with delivering on your brand’s promises. Employers will need to present interesting challenges as well as opportunities to learn and evolve in their roles to keep Gen Z engaged in the workplace. Generation Z Grew Up With Personal Brands Millennials tend to splash every detail of their lives on their social media accounts. Generation Z takes more care in curating the content they share and the image they present on social media. Jeff Fromm describes this phenomenon: Through social media, they meticulously curate their personal brand to reflect how they want to be perceived. Unlike the millennial generation, Pivotals [Generation Z] only share specific stories, to specific people, on specific channels. Your Take-Away Understanding and respecting this desire for privacy will be important when it comes to connecting with and managing Gen Z. And, if marketers hope to reach this audience, they need to be just as savvy in curating targeted appropriate content for specific channels. Generation Z has Higher Expectations Millennials value authenticity in the brands with which they do business.  This is true for Generation Z as well.    But, Gen Z take it one step further. Like their older cohort, Gen Z is vigilant against ads and being “sold.” But, they also expect to be a part of something bigger. This new generation is bringing high expectations and a sense of social responsibility with them. Generation Z has opinions and they want to make an impact. Patel explains: Gen Z is open minded, and believe there’s plenty of room for everyone to thrive together.  This is important for big brands to note. Now more than ever, consumers are eagerly looking to the big brands and companies of the world to facilitate these major changes…Your messaging needs to be intelligent, thoughtful and inclusive. It’s not about proving that you’re right and someone else is wrong. It’s about including everyone together. Gen Z is already tired of the status quo. They want their role to make a difference for the better. And they’re not waiting â€" they already have a strong influence on purchases: Your Take-Away If you’re looking to snag these young visionaries as employees, be prepared to show them how your business is making the world a better, more inclusive place. And, if you want to sell to them, be ready to create an authentic brand with values they can get behind. For example, if you sell physical products, consider sustainable strategies when creating products and packaging design for those products. The Future is Here Millennials have already conquered the workforce. And, shortly, Generation Z is poised to make an equally significant impact. Your business needs to adapt. Or it will become obsolete. This guest post was authored by Katie Lundin Katie Lundin is on the customer support team at  crowdspring,  one of the world’s leading marketplaces for crowdsourced logo design, web design, graphic design, product design, and company naming services. She helps entrepreneurs, small businesses and agencies with branding, design, and naming, and regularly writes about entrepreneurship, small business and design on crowdsprings award-winning small business blog.

Dont be a generalist -- Typecast yourself

Dont be a generalist -- Typecast yourself During the Internets go-go days in the late 1990s, I thought the term generalist meant shes doing two jobs and pays herself double. Now it seems the word generalist means good at nothing and unemployed. In either case, generalist is the label for a career that will die. Think cars: You never hear an advertiser say, Buy my car, its good for everything! Volvos are safe. BMWs are fun. Saturns are easy to buy. Just as successfully branded products offer specific benefits, successfully branded careerists offer specific talents. You get to the top by being the best, and you cant be the best at everything. Ezra Zuckerman, a professor at MITs Sloan School of Management, agrees and has the research to prove it. In his study of typecasting in Hollywood entitled Robust Identities or Nonentities, Zuckerman found that specialization leads to longer, more productive careers. Contrary to conventional Hollywood wisdom, big bucks come most often to people who become known for a certain type of role. Zuckerman finds that typecasting, as this practice is called, is also a moneymaker in the business world, where the hiring system is set up to reward those who differentiate themselves. Headhunters are specialized, he says, and they look for something they can package and sell. Generalist is a good moniker during the first few years of your career. For example, if youre a standout college grad, you may win a place in a general-management rotational training program, such as General Electric Co. and other well-known consumer products companies offer. But the point of such training programs is to figure out what youre good at and then seek an internal role in that department. So take a gamble. Figure out what youre best at and start making your mark. Then hope for good timing that someone needs that particular talent when you have become expert at it. Carly Fiorina, for example, is an outstanding marketer in the technology sector. She got to be chair and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard by being the best and having a little luck: the company badly needed marketing expertise when it was conducting a search for a CEO. If it had needed an engineering genius, Fiorina would not have been considered. By the same token, if a food-products company needed a marketing-oriented CEO, Fiorina would not have been a candidate because her background is in technology. People who define themselves clearly are clearly wrong for certain positions, but super-achievers take that risk. Many professionals hesitate to define themselves because it limits where you can go. But top players must have clear definition. Most have enough confidence in their abilities to risk specialization. Very simply, they believe that adequate opportunities will be available as they progress up the ladder. To specialize, think discipline (marketing, sales, operations, etc) and sector (media, technology, fashion, etc.) Become known for your extremes. If you arent extremely good at something, you wont get to the top. Still not convinced of the benefits of typecasting? Then consider the current job market. Hundreds of applicants vie for most jobs, and many are more than qualified. This means hiring managers can demand a perfect fit and specialists rather than generalists typically offer a perfect fit. Figure out what your strengths are and hone them. Sure, take varied positions in the company, and learn a range of skills, but make sure people know where your talents lie. People at the top need to see you as someone who is extremely good at something, and no one is extremely good at everything, so dont sell yourself that way to upper management.

10 Differences Between a Resume and a LinkedIn Profile CareerMetis.com

10 Differences Between a Resume and a LinkedIn Profile There has been a lot of talk among the recruiting experts on whether a traditional resume isn’t becoming outdated in the age of Linkedin. Without a doubt, we live in the world of social media and even the professional sphere couldn’t escape this trend.Needless to say, LinkedIn has changed the job search as well as the hiring process. In the past, the recruiters had nothing at their disposal about the candidate than his or her resume and a cover letter. Today, after the hiring manager reads your resume, they will go and check you on Linkedin before your other social media pages.evalYou might think that a LinkedIn profile is just an online version of a resume. However, there are plenty of differences between the two. Despite the fact that LinkedIn has become widely popular and almost necessary when you’re looking for a job, job-seeking still hangs on a static, “offline” resume.In order to get hired, you should make sure both your resume and your LinkedIn profile are promoting you and your skills in the best light. For that, you should know in what way are the two different.Here are 10 key differences between a resume and a LinkedIn profile:1)Different purposeevalQuite obviously, the purpose of a resume is to get an interview and get hired. Though headhunters often use LinkedIn to hire people, it’s main goal is to keep you connected with other people from your industry and to help you stay in the loop about what’s going on in your area of expertise. Even though both resume and LinkedIn profile summarize your professional career, LinkedIn works more like a general overview of all your knowledge, skills and experiences, while the goal of a resume is to match your competencies with the job offer you’re sending your resume for.2) DynamicsevalLinkedIn offers a much richer experience to the viewer than a resume. A resume is static and contains only limited information that’s related to the requirements of the job in question. Opposite to that, LinkedIn is dynamic and ever-changing thanks to your constant online activity.Also, while a resume is a communication merely between you and the hiring manager, your LinkedIn profile is shaped by a third party as well â€" your connections.Other people can contribute to the dynamics of your profile: they can endorse you for your skills, write recommendations for you or share and comment on the content you publish.3) Universality vs. creativityLinkedIn’s universality is one of the downfalls of this social network.evalSince every profile looks the same, standing out from the crowd is pretty hard on LinkedIn.It’s easier to distinguish yourself and be noticed with your resume’s unique design, layout, or wording.You can pump up your creativity and create a resume that grabs the hiring manager’s attention and makes you stand out from other candidates. Create your one of a kind resume with Kickresume.4) RelevanceIn terms of relevance, a resume and LinkedIn vary greatly. While on your Linked In profile you usually include all of your previous and current career info, a resume should contain only the information relevant to the job offer you’re applying for.Like we said earlier, LinkedIn is not a job site. It is a resume’s purpose to find you a job, so each resume should be tailored to a specific job offer. This means you should highlight the most relevant skills and leave out the fluff. Only after the hiring manager reads your resume, he or she might want to check for some additional details about you on LinkedIn.eval5) Length and infoSince resume should contain only details related to the job position you’re applying for, you should keep it one to two pages long. evalWhen it comes to LinkedIn, there is no limit on how long your profile should be. It can also contain plenty of extra material such as links, videos, presentations or your publications. LinkedIn profile’s length and scope are some of the reasons why resumes still dominate the hiring process. It usua lly takes hiring managers less than ten seconds to examine the candidate and going over their LinkedIn profile would be a bit time-inefficient.eval6) One LinkedIn vs. more resumesSince resume serves to land you a job (and you rarely apply for just one job), you should always have more than one resume. In fact, you should write as many resumes as the jobs you plan to apply for. Every resume must be specifically tailored to the job offer and designed in a way suitable to your industry. On the contrary, you always have only one LinkedIn profile that you just keep updated for new details.Did you know you can create a resume straight from your LinkedIn profile in less than 5 minutes?Check out this video 7) Photo Not too long ago, including a photo on a resume was a usual practice. Now, it’s not favored by the hiring managers for it can lead to bias and discrimination. On the other hand, the LinkedIn profile contains a photo by default. It’s optional, of course, but profiles including photos look more professional in the eyes of recruiters.Be careful about your photo selection: it should be a professional headshot, “facebook-like” profile pictures are out of bounds. On LinkedIn, you can also add a background photo to your profile. Choose one that isn’t disturbing and goes well with the industry you work in.8) Publicity vs. PrivacyIn the online world, nothing is really private. Some people may not feel comfortable with publishing certain information for anyone to see on LinkedIn. Your resume, on the other hand, is a private communication between you and your potential employer. Since the newest trends in resume writing recommend not to disclose any personal details such as race, religious beliefs, age, marital status or address, there rarely are privacy issues with resumes. The publicity of LinkedIn has one big advantage, though: Headhunters and recruiters often use LinkedIn to contact interesting people. Your professional overview is publicly available so you might get a great job offer even without having to send your resume anywhere.9) Focus vs. generalityWhile your LinkedIn says: “Look at what I’ve done in my career so far, this is what I can do and what I know”, your resume should be saying: “My skills and previous work experiences make me an ideal candidate for you. Here’s how your company will benefit from hiring me.”Not only should your resume be tailored specifically to each job, but you should also avoid being too general in your resume. It is important to choose the right wording and structure. Unlike in your LinkedIn profile, your resume should address the hiring manager directly and communicate a different message to the one who reads it.10) KeywordsEven though headhunters use advanced search for keywords in LinkedIn profiles, you have only limited options to match your profile with any particular job. Choosing the right keywords is much easier in resumes since every job opening contains plenty of keywords and phrases you can use. Also, some companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) that search for the keywords the right candidate should have in his or her resume.This post contains affiliate links. Please read our disclaimer for more information.