Search Results - ideas

Topic: Interview Tips: Jung, are energized by their own internal world and the world of ideas. They recharge their batteries through solitude and reflection, and they find social encounters, particularly those that involve a lot of people, draining. Extroverts, by contrast, are energized by the external world, and they find social encounters invigorating and stimulating. Because interviews are, by definition, social encounters, they put introverts at a disadvantage. In addition, introverts frequently struggle to find the right word and have difficulty thinking on their feet. While extroverts typically think out loud to reach a conclusion and generally aren't at a loss for words, introverts need time to process information before formulating an answer, have difficulty responding quickly, and may have trouble recalling a word or idea. This tendency is heightened under the stress of an interview. If you're an introvert – and up to 50% of the population is thought to be (including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, among many other chief executives) – the seven steps below can help you manage your introversion effectively in the interview process. Before the Interview: Ask About the Interview – When you are invited for an interview, ask about the structure of the interview. How many people will you be meeting with? What are their names and titles? Will you be meeting with them together or in back-to-back meetings? How much time should you schedule for the interview process? With this information, do some research on the people you'll be meeting with. Search for their names on the company web site, and on sites such as Google, Zoominfo, and LinkedIn, to see what you can learn about them. You may find information that will be helpful in your conversation. As an introvert, having time to process that information ahead of the interview will help you prepare your answers. Knowing the expected timeframe will allow you to manage your energy flow, following the techniques described below. Advance knowledge of the sequence of events will reduce the stress and the energy drain. Review Your Work History – Re-read your resume to organize your thoughts and come up with additional examples that illustrate your accomplishments. Develop a brief statement that summarizes those accomplishments and describes your value to the company – this answers the "tell me about yourself" question. Anticipate the other questions you will be asked and prepare answers ahead of time. Consider actually writing out your answers, or rehearsing them out loud with a friend (or with a tape recorder), not to memorize the answers, but to engage several of your senses in the process of remembering. This preparation helps you respond to questions more quickly and easily. Brain scans show that introverts actually use different neurological pathways for information processing than extroverts use, thus accounting for their slower processing time. It's almost as if the information is in long-term storage, and it takes time to rummage through it to find what you're looking for, which is why it's so hard to think on your feet. If you do the rummaging in advance by reviewing your own history, you move the information into short-term memory, where it's more readily accessible. By planning your answers ahead of time, you won't have to "wing it." During the Interview: Allow Yourself Time to Think – If you're asked a question that you don't have an immediate answer for, it's acceptable to say, "That's a good question. Let me think about that for a minute." Then sit silently for a moment and organize your thoughts. By announcing that you need a minute to think, you've given a response right away, even though you haven't yet given your answer. Essentially, you've bought yourself some time and slowed down the process. Use a "Cheat Sheet" – If you're concerned that you'll forget the examples you came up with during your advance preparation, bring a leather portfolio with you, with a pad of paper, and use the paper both to take notes and to prepare ahead of time a couple of words or phrases as cues to your examples. (These need to be very brief, or else you'll have trouble finding the information on the page.) Then, during your momentary pause to organize your thoughts, you can glance down at your portfolio and find the prompts you've written for yourself. This strategy can help you think on your feet. Reframe Your Introverted Information Processing Style as a Strength – Because we live in a society that values extroverted behaviors, you may have come to regard your slower thought processing as a flaw. On the contrary, your careful deliberation and analysis means your answers will be well thought out – introverts don't "shoot from the hip." If you're called upon to describe a strength, consider identifying this quality and presenting it as the strength that it is. This has the added benefit of alerting the interviewer to your introverted style, to provide a context for your more methodical manner. Manage Your Energy – If you have a marathon interview that involves multiple interviewers and many hours, you may begin to feel depleted. Ask for a bathroom break, just to give yourself a moment alone and a chance to regroup. If need be, have an energy bar. You can also use this opportunity to glance again at any notes you've brought with you. After the Interview: Write a Powerful Thank You Letter – If you do stumble over an answer, your thank you letter gives you an opportunity to recover. Along with extending your thanks, you can note that, on further reflection about a particular question, you have additional thoughts, and then state them. Interviews can be a challenge for introverts, but careful preparation will enable you to manage these occasions successfully. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wendy Gelberg is the owner of Gentle Job Search/Advantage Resumes. She is a certified career coach and resume writer whose expertise is in helping people who are uncomfortable "tooting their own horn." Designated the "Job-Hunt Pro for Introverts" for www.job-hunt.org, Wendy coaches individuals, gives workshops, and writes articles and blogs on all aspects of the job search process, Her book, "The Successful Introvert: How to Enhance Your Job Search and Advance Your Career," will be published Fall 2008). Samples of her resumes and career advice appear in over 20 books. Wendy has owned her business for over 10 years. She has been an introvert her whole life. Contact Wendy at wendy@gentlejobsearch.com.…; Added by C. B. Stalling!! at 3:14pm on October 16, 2008

Topic: Securing Future Business Now: nd Subway was that you could "have it your way." Ok, yes, I know that's another place, but really? It's a sandwich bar, for God's sake. Let me build my sandwich if you can't do the job you get paid to do. The avocado being placed on my sandwich was brown and rotten. You would have thought I'd asked for the moon, the way I had to ask several times for a different avocado. I'm paying extra for the 'cado, I'm the one eating it, please, just give it to me "my way." In my head, I was screaming, and apparently some of that aggression came out, because two customers back, a woman snarled loud enough for me to hear, "Attitude." You can bet that shut me up..., not. It wasn't pretty. Needless to say, my Subway experience was not supreme. I, like you, work very hard for my money. I do not like to waste it. I do not like to have to ask more than twice for something that should be obvious. I do not like to have someone, not earning / not spending my money, question my fast food requirements. I'm standing right here watching a definitely bad avocado being put on my sandwich, "my" sandwich. I'm not a brat. I am normally very easy-going and appreciative, I might have been a bit grumpy. And for that I am sorry. But I will never be sorry for "the customer is always right," I didn't make that up, by the way. I just think it is right. Since I am a firm believer in life lessons, this one has a secure place in my catalog. Each and every day, we have an opportunity to impress someone, make someone happy, fix a problem, solve an issue, secure a future relationship. I want my clients to be happy with my service, my product - today and every day. Why? Because I want them to call me tomorrow. I want the candidates with whom I engage to take my call tomorrow. I would like to have the partner sharing our space to refer business to us. I think it is imperative that whomever I speak with on behalf of my company have the best experience possible. Do you think I will be stopping by a Subway anytime soon to pick up a six-inch bacon avocado? Nope. Securing business for the future. If I made New Year's resolutions, one would be to declare my Subway abstinence. And really, it is NOT my responsibility to teach a sandwich maker how to slap some bread together and make a sandwich their customer will love and appreciate, and then come back for more, right? It is so easy to forget about the future when so many hate their present. Securing business for the future, how are you making that happen now? by rayannethorn …; Added by Rayanne at 2:45am on January 7, 2011

Topic: If Recruitment Was Invented Today This Is How It Would Work.: arting the hiring process the other day it occurred to me just how backward and upside down the whole hiring malarkey is. So it got me thinking……’we’re hiring a web developer, in a perfect world, how would I like it to happen’ and this is what I came up with. Wouldn’t it be great if somehow everyone on the planet of working age was legally obliged to create a profile stored on some kind of gigantic database which lists everything you’ve achieved in your career to date, including the companies you’ve worked for and job titles etc. It would be a legal requirement to keep your profile up to date and accurate to ensure that when you did apply for a job, rather like testifying in a court of law, you’re vouching that this is a true and accurate record of your career history and if you lie you’re committing recruitment perjury with a criminal record to follow punishable by fines, time behind bars etc etc. That would stop the little white lies we all know exist ‘Honest I do have a computer science degree’. So there we are with 4 billion workers all listed on said uber database. Think Linkedin on steroids. Next challenge would be to ensure that all employers are connected to it. Well that’s not too difficult given the growing ubiquity of smartphones, they can just register and use it. The potentially tricky bit is, as ever, sorting out the data so it can be searched accurately by the recruiter. Location shouldn’t be too difficult. Job title, key word searches and current salary……all can be filtered quite easily (take note big job boards it really isn’t that difficult to create an easily searchable resume database - sort it out, I’m bored of wading through 95% of irrelevant profiles). Sure it wouldn’t be perfect but data analysis is getting better each year so it wouldn’t take long for the system to learn to be incredibly accurate when retrieving profiles. Now here comes the clever bit. When hiring the other day I thought to myself, ok I’ve added in the job to our free applicant tracking system now ideally what I’d like it to do is immediately produce a list of matching candidates in descending order of suitability, not just from Linkedin or Monster’s resume pile, no I want it to search the super database in the sky that holds every profile of every person of working age on the planet. In fact I’m so darn lazy I don’t even want to have to type in a search string…….I just want ‘the system’ to do it for me. So it reads the job title, salary, location, key words extracting all the key data from everyone’s profile and then automatically produces the list for me by best match. But I don’t want to have to go and contact them either, that would require work. I want said system to do it for me, not with anything so crude as an email…..’we’re hiring a web developer etc’, no I’m talking about a system which is preintegrated into everyone’s smartphone as an ‘Interesting jobs app’ or the same on your desktop via a browser based app built into Chrome, IE, Firefox etc. That way the moment I start to hire a role ‘the system’ automatically works out who the best people from the database of every single employee on the planet, automatically alerts them to the vacancy via our cool new global job alerts app and allows them to express an interest in the role via a 1 click button. We can’t have the job seeker doing anything so tiresome as actually submitting a resume. Perish the thought. No, what is best for the truly lazy jobseeker (read passive job seeker) is just 1 button which when pressed highlights their profile to me on my list of possible matches as someone who’d like to be considered for the role. Then comes the time consuming bit……….I’ve actually got to interview them. Ok, ok….I can hear all the liberals out there foaming at the mouth…..’what an invasion of privacy’ ’ I don’t want my career history made public’. Well there are ways around that. Once you become a registered company or organisation/charity etc, you get a password to access the system and that’s restricted to just selected people within each organisation so the general public can’t view them at will. You could also remove the person’s name, just leaving their career history as an added level of privacy. Think about it, everyone who works has to submit a tax return of some kind. Why not simply add on, as a legal requirement, that they must also fill in their career profile online at this system. A basic career history can be put together in 5 minutes so it’s not exactly a great hassle and each time you leave a job and go elsewhere it’s your responsibility to keep it updated and accurate. Yeah, I know……what about the people who are retiring, working part time, maternity leave, just don’t want to work etc. There are probably a hundred quibbles you could produce but I don’t think the broad idea is that daft. Think about how incredible it would be if you just added a job into this system and it automatically searches every single possible person who could do the job and alerts them to your vacancy? Now job boards, staffing agencies etc would be up in arms as they’d be out of business within days as every job is sourced directly so they’d fight tooth and nail to stop it and I can’t see it being much of a vote winner (other than the clique of dedicated in house recruiters) so there wouldn’t be much in it for a politician to add it to the statute book but you never know. As someone once said………’the ones who are craziest enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do’. …; Added by Nick Leigh-Morgan at 11:16am on July 31, 2012

Comment on: Topic 'Brand New Here!': I have answered your questions below. -Julenne Joshua Lee said: Julenne - Let me answer your question with a series of questions to help me understand where you're coming from. Your situation can be interpreted so many ways, I just have to make sure I'm seeing it form the right perspective. 1. Are you merely inquiring and considering maybe, perhaps, kinda thinking about getting into recruiting or have you decided? I have been told that being a recruiter would fit me due to my sales experience and resourcefulness when it comes networking, finding employment as well as assisting friends with doing so. - It is true that recruiting has a lot of similarities to sales. In fact a lot of the training are derived from well established sales concepts (open ended questioning, rebuttals to objections, controlling the conversation, managing expectations, follow up, being service oriented). - However, just because you know how to cook an egg doesn't mean you know how to make eggs benedict. There is industry substantive knowledge that needs to be learned. For instance, although people are people, the IT customer is different than the Finance customer. Likewise, the Start-up customer is different than your Fortune 500, the Manufacturing industry is different from services industry, etc. so there is a bit of a learning curve, although your sales experience will give you the conceptual idea of how to approach the problem. 2. What led you to recruiting? How did you come to decide this is what you want to look into (as apposed to something else that you've already done? My understanding is that recruiting is based ultimately upon sales and relationships, and I have been in sales for close to 10 years with great success. - Supra (look above at #1). Again, very similar but different. Not apples and oranges but more like tangerine and lemon. You have to appreciate the distinctions which will come with time and experience. Starting out knowing that, will be helpful. 3. This is personal, but would you say you've found success in many things you've done or few? I have achieved success overall, I'm looking for a change along with a boost in income, with the ability to work for myself. - This is a totally separate subject. You can make a good living. It's definitely possible. However, I would like to caution you in this way. There are many nuances to staffing that you can't possibly know without experience. How many people to submit for interview, how many interviews are good, how to prepare candidates, what to do when a deal goes south, and how to anticipate that things will go south some of the times. It's a big deal when you're dealing with people's careers and not just a widget. 4. Do you know people in staffing? No, I do not. - You will get "some" superficial" information from this blog but in no way will it give you real substantive info that is required. Sure people share stuff but think about. Do you think anybody is really going to give away their "secret sauce"? You have to also learn to distinguish advice from novices and experts. 5. What do you know about the business? What assumptions, knowledge, education, information, experience do you have regarding the business? From what I've read and observed so far. mostly from this site, the competition is stiff, but there are definitely opportunities out there. Education isn't as important as sales experience over the phone and in person. It would probably be wise to obtain a mentor of some sort before jumping out there completely solo. - I would highly recommend you don't go solo right off the bat. You simply don't know what you don't know. I would work for an agency for 2 solid years then decide if going solo is for you. 6. Finally, is there a business that you think anybody can be successful in without experience? I know that in the beginning there will definitely be some bumps in the road and am not expecting success overnight. I have noticed a couple of posts from recruiters that are fairly new to the business and would like to get a gist of what it is like to start from scratch. - Again, there are things that are just not shared. It's a hard road. Think of it this way. Imagine you've done your homework...etc etc. and you're ready to get cooking. You make your first call to a client. They ask you "I need a Software Engineer. We're a Java shop. I need an Architect and a Business Analyst asap". Please help! Do you know how to source for them? Lets say you are fortunate enough to find a couple. Are they the right kind? Do you know what you have to ask these candidates before you submit them? Even if they give you the right answers, do you know what you have to do after they get their first interview? Do you know how many times you have to go through this before one sticks? - All I'm saying is.....I think personally, anybody who starts their own firm without working for someone first is asking for a painful reality check. …; Added by Julenne Caldwell at 8:17pm on December 5, 2012

Comment on: Topic 'Brand New Here!': answer your question with a series of questions to help me understand where you're coming from. Your situation can be interpreted so many ways, I just have to make sure I'm seeing it form the right perspective. 1. Are you merely inquiring and considering maybe, perhaps, kinda thinking about getting into recruiting or have you decided? I have been told that being a recruiter would fit me due to my sales experience and resourcefulness when it comes networking, finding employment as well as assisting friends with doing so. - It is true that recruiting has a lot of similarities to sales. In fact a lot of the training are derived from well established sales concepts (open ended questioning, rebuttals to objections, controlling the conversation, managing expectations, follow up, being service oriented). - However, just because you know how to cook an egg doesn't mean you know how to make eggs benedict. There is industry substantive knowledge that needs to be learned. For instance, although people are people, the IT customer is different than the Finance customer. Likewise, the Start-up customer is different than your Fortune 500, the Manufacturing industry is different from services industry, etc. so there is a bit of a learning curve, although your sales experience will give you the conceptual idea of how to approach the problem. 2. What led you to recruiting? How did you come to decide this is what you want to look into (as apposed to something else that you've already done? My understanding is that recruiting is based ultimately upon sales and relationships, and I have been in sales for close to 10 years with great success. - Supra (look above at #1). Again, very similar but different. Not apples and oranges but more like tangerine and lemon. You have to appreciate the distinctions which will come with time and experience. Starting out knowing that, will be helpful. 3. This is personal, but would you say you've found success in many things you've done or few? I have achieved success overall, I'm looking for a change along with a boost in income, with the ability to work for myself. - This is a totally separate subject. You can make a good living. It's definitely possible. However, I would like to caution you in this way. There are many nuances to staffing that you can't possibly know without experience. How many people to submit for interview, how many interviews are good, how to prepare candidates, what to do when a deal goes south, and how to anticipate that things will go south some of the times. It's a big deal when you're dealing with people's careers and not just a widget. 4. Do you know people in staffing? No, I do not. - You will get "some" superficial" information from this blog but in no way will it give you real substantive info that is required. Sure people share stuff but think about. Do you think anybody is really going to give away their "secret sauce"? You have to also learn to distinguish advice from novices and experts. 5. What do you know about the business? What assumptions, knowledge, education, information, experience do you have regarding the business? From what I've read and observed so far. mostly from this site, the competition is stiff, but there are definitely opportunities out there. Education isn't as important as sales experience over the phone and in person. It would probably be wise to obtain a mentor of some sort before jumping out there completely solo. - I would highly recommend you don't go solo right off the bat. You simply don't know what you don't know. I would work for an agency for 2 solid years then decide if going solo is for you. 6. Finally, is there a business that you think anybody can be successful in without experience? I know that in the beginning there will definitely be some bumps in the road and am not expecting success overnight. I have noticed a couple of posts from recruiters that are fairly new to the business and would like to get a gist of what it is like to start from scratch. - Again, there are things that are just not shared. It's a hard road. Think of it this way. Imagine you've done your homework...etc etc. and you're ready to get cooking. You make your first call to a client. They ask you "I need a Software Engineer. We're a Java shop. I need an Architect and a Business Analyst asap". Please help! Do you know how to source for them? Lets say you are fortunate enough to find a couple. Are they the right kind? Do you know what you have to ask these candidates before you submit them? Even if they give you the right answers, do you know what you have to do after they get their first interview? Do you know how many times you have to go through this before one sticks? - All I'm saying is.....I think personally, anybody who starts their own firm without working for someone first is asking for a painful reality check. …; Added by Joshua Lee at 5:22pm on December 5, 2012

Blog Post: Build an Employee Referral Program in 4 Easy Steps

In this blog post, you will learn how to build an effective employee referral program in 4 easy steps!…

Added by Kristina Martic at 1:53pm on July 6, 2018

Blog Post: Keep the Human in Human Resources – An Interview with the Evil HR Lady: The Evil HR Lady is Actually Very Polite

We contacted…; Added by Hagi Trinh at 6:08am on February 23, 2016

Blog Post: GOOD HEADLINE FOR LINKEDIN: Added by Mandy Fard - CPRW, CMRW at 9:12pm on June 19, 2022

Blog Post: Take This Cult and Shove It - Why Culture Fit Shouldn't Be a Thing: Am I the only one who has finally reached the end of the proverbial rope…; Added by Skip Graham at 1:19pm on September 9, 2015

Blog Post: It's time to take 'social recruiting' to the next level: As I was writing up a 'social media recruiting guide' for a client today, I had one of my many epiphanies:

We are finally to the point where social media can become REALLY powerful…; Added by ryanchartrand at 3:11pm on April 23, 2009