On April 20, 1999, Cassie Bernall, a 17-year-old student at Columbine High School, faced a life and death choice — tell the boy with the gun what he wanted to hear or tell him the truth. Being strong in her convictions, she chose the truth and he choose to end her life. This tragedy is one of the saddest moments of that decade and it holds for us a powerful truth about control over others: we have none. Each and every person we work with has the power of choice and nothing we say, nor how we…

There are three important reasons for us to be aware of…

When making any decision in life, you need to process and interplay a variety of factors to determine between a variety of choices you have at your disposal.  When sifting through these choices you’ll see differences in money, production and overall enjoyment that a certain decision will bring.  But the key deciding factor is most always time.  Do you have enough time to do this choice or better yet is it worth your time to do (with the other choices that are available to…

I had a great student job when I was in college.  I had the pleasure of working in the SUNY Geneseo College Student Union and working for a great mentor, Chip Matthews, Union Director.  I often lean on the learnings and advice I received from Chip, and wanted to know how he was doing since I left (I am sure the place is falling down without me!).  I had the opportunity to sit down and discuss the topic of managing college students with Chip Matthews.  What…

With the UK recruitment sector showing signs of recovery there’s never been a better time to mingle.  Sharing thoughts with peers is both invigorating and educational, all the while adding important values to your personal brand.

Many recruiters view LinkedIn as an enormous job board or talent pool,…

Almost all states have security breach laws that require notification (at least) of individuals when a data holder suffers unauthorized disclosure of certain personally identifiable information.

The important facts to know are the definitions of personally identifiable information and what it takes to achieve “safe harbor” in the event of disclosure.  

The usual definition of personally identifiable…

Technology is becoming an increasingly strong asset in all areas of business.  As companies become more complex, the need for technology grows and management is turning to technology for answers in all verticals.  Have we asked ourselves - is technology the answer at all?  Managers look to technology approaching issues with the question "What technology will solve this issue?"  They need to ask if technology is the answer at all, and then ask what technology might be the appropriate…

Since I looked back at 2010 in a recent post, I’ll look ahead in this one. And I’ll admit, reading U.S. News and World Report’s annual …

Looking at my career I've taken my fair share of risks and have gotten rewarded for some great successes because of those risks. I've also failed after taking on some risky ideas, but in the end learned more from the failure and ended up encouraging me to take on even more risks. Taking my first risk was the hardest risk to take, moving to San Francisco from Chicago…

I laugh continuously at the tenuous debate over what to where and when reference work.  Is this the red carpet, are we attending a formal reception, do we need to know the dress according to what time of the day the marriage ceremony is?  It is simply another issue to add to the useless list (that is becoming exceedingly long) that are thrown on to the shoulders of workers across the country by mindless drones in corporate America that think up what is the formal dress code for their…

Once upon a pretty short time ago, companies who were thinking of outsourcing or building new manufacturing plants considered Mexico a good idea.  And why not?   Labor is inexpensive, the weather is decent, and Mexican workers are diligent and competent.   There are advantages to locating factories in Mexico, thanks in part to the NAFTA agreement.   Mexico gives businesses easy proximity to the United States, so there is a reduction in shipping costs.

But now Mexico is consumed by a…

A week into my social job hunt and I’m having some interesting conversations.

The online community has been awesome, giving me some great exposure and alerting me to opportunities. So far the lack of a physical CV has not hindered me, but I accept that it is early days. I won’t write too much about what is happening so far, except to say that my new style blog has attracted many views and some interest. The ‘Watch Me Being Interviewed’ page has been particularly useful for anyone…

Project Management (PM) staffing style!!

One way I have found to be very successful as a staffing professional is to Treat every opening like a project and use the basic PM steps to ensure you do the job right. Step one is to do needs analysis. This is the same thing as your first meeting with your client to determine what they need, write the JD etc.. Then you go on to the next step and so on till the position is filled.

There are six main steps…

Cultivating Leadership

Stories about flash in the pan social media companies.

Most everything related to the Employment Industry outside of the USA.

How much Facebook is allegedly worth.

College recruiting.

Whatever TED is.

The demise of MySpace.

Any and all news about iPads or iPhones.  I use neither.

Reasons my company can NOT ignore Social Media.

Increasing Employee Retention.

Google…

So you are hiring for a position.  You’ve interviewed 5-6 candidates in the final interview process and made an offer to the best candidate.  And the best part, they accepted.

So the recruitment marketing campaign is over and was a smashing success, right?  Yes and no.

You recruited and hired the candidate you wanted (which is a success in itself), however, the question is what happened to the other 4-5…