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#Leadership : Do These Things To #ReduceTurnover Among Your #BestHires …It takes Work to #Retain #StarEmployees . Here are the Steps you Can take to Stop Losing them to “Better Offers.”

February 26, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

If there’s anyone more hopeful than a new employee showing up to her first day on the job, it’s the hiring manager who offered it to her.

Call us hopeless romantics, but we think there’s something really special about a candidate and a company coming to an agreement and choosing to embark on a relationship together–albeit a business one.

But what happens when the relationship goes south and the employee decides to move on? There may not be actual tears, but it can still feel like heartbreak to the recruiter, hiring manager, and leadership team that had high hopes for the future.

So, what can you do when you’re tired of losing employees to “better offers”? Here’s what five recruiting and hiring pros would do to reduce churn and improve employee engagement and retention:

1. BE HONEST ABOUT THE DOWNSIDES OF A POSITION

It makes sense to try to put your best foot forward in the first stages of the interview process. After all, that’s what job candidates are doing, too. But Chuck Solomon, cofounder and COO of LineHire, says that it’s in the best interest of long-term employee retention to be upfront about what a job is really like without candy coating the truth or trying to ignore potential challenges within a job.

“It may sound quaint, but I believe authenticity is key to reducing churn and increasing employee retention,” says Solomon. “Recruiters should be honest and accurate in describing both the pros and cons of the job–after all, once on board, the candidate is going to learn firsthand themselves. I’m not suggesting you should ‘air the company’s dirty laundry,’ but there are ways to tell a candidate that this is a challenging position. That way you’re only bringing in staff members that are up for the challenges.”

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2. CLOSE THE LOOP ON NEW HIRE DATA

Find the best person, hire them, and move on. Sound familiar? If that’s your approach to most of the positions you fill and you want to reduce churn, Mikaela Kiner, CEO and Founder of uniquelyHR, wants you to think about following up and tracking how your candidates work out in the role.

“Recruiters always believe we’ve found the absolute best candidate for the job, says Kiner. “After all, that’s why we hired them! But too often, we don’t know what happens once that person joins the company. Did that person become a superstar, did they plateau, or were they eventually let go for poor performance? If recruiters can work with HR and hiring managers to get data on the quality of the people they’ve hired, they can spot trends and then use that data to improve the screening and recruiting process.”

“For example, what skills and qualities are common to the most successful hires?” continues Kiner. “Failures are also a good source of learning, because if you make a note of red flags during interviews of people who don’t succeed, you can be on the lookout for similar candidate qualities in the future.”

3. LISTEN TO AND REWARD EMPLOYEES BEFORE THERE’S A PROBLEM

Brianna Rooney, founder of software engineer recruiting company Techees, works in a high turnover industry placing software engineers at tech-focused companies in the Bay Area. In her line of work, it’s common for people to leave every year, and if someone has been with their company for three years, it’s a downright miracle. Why? Because most companies say they don’t have time to deal with employee retention or simply don’t want to know the bad things about their company.

“I can’t tell you how many times a company will try to give a raise or actually listen to an employee when it’s way too late,” says Rooney. “Everyone wants to save money. It’s hard to keep giving raises. Yet, think about how hard it is to find good people. People you trust to work hard, honestly, and efficiently.”

“If you don’t have the budget for a salary increase, make sure they understand that,” Rooney continues. “Talk to employees, make them know how important they are. Don’t just wait for quarterly or yearly meetings. You need to care before you ‘have to,’ and it has to come naturally.”

4. RECRUIT QUALITIES THAT MAKE FOR GOOD OFFICE POLITICS

Are office politics always a bad thing? No, says CEO and The Compass Alliance author Tim Cole. They can be good or bad for an organization depending on how they are directed. But if you’re in a position where you need to reduce churn, your politics are likely unproductive. It’s critical that you start screening candidates for qualities that are conducive to healthy office politics.

“Bad office politics implies backstabbing and conspiring for personal gain,” says Cole. “An organization that tolerates that type of behavior faces the long-term effects that always follow, like low engagement, loss of productivity, and attrition.”

Cole adds: “Companies that recruit for collaboration skills and capacity for problem solving can often direct office politics in a more positive direction and use them to streamline workflow with behind-the-scenes discussions and gain consensus on critical job decisions away from the boardroom.”

5. RALLY YOUR TEAM AROUND A COMMON “WHY”

Low employee retention and low engagement go hand in hand, so if you’re struggling with a need to reduce churn, you are likely struggling with employee engagement, too. Zach Hendrix, cofounder of the lawn service app GreenPal, grew one business from 1 to 100 using a simple but profound engagement strategy: rally employees around the central “why” of their jobs and the business as a whole.

In his first business, much of Hendrix’s operating core was comprised of Guatemalan immigrants who would come to the United States for several consecutive lawn mowing seasons and save as much money as they could to improve the lives of their families back home by building homes, ranches, and setting up farms stocked with cattle.

To fuel his team through the tough times, including the economic recession of 2009, he rallied them around their “why.” At weekly meetings, they would give progress reports on how projects back home were coming along and display picture collages of homes, farms, and businesses in Guatemala in the office and shop.

There’s nothing more frustrating than waving farewell to an employee you had hoped would stick around long-term. And while there are many reasons you’ll need to say goodbye to employees over the years–relocations, promotions, and career changes among them–there’s a lot you can do to make sure that your company isn’t the reason employees leave. Consider how you can apply these tips to your recruiting and hiring process to reduce churn to help your candidates stick around.

FastCompany.com | February 26, 2018 | BY SARAH GREESONBACH—GLASSDOOR 5 MINUTE READ

Your #Career : Add This To Your Resume After Deleting Your “Objective” Statement…A “Performance Summary” Puts a Fresh (and Tech-Savvy) Spin on an Outmoded #Resume Feature.

February 16, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Since most resumes are written to cast a wide net, they basically just recite everything the writer has done, but this approach dilutes the all-important data density that makes your resume discoverable. In order for recruiters to find your resume in the vast databases they search through, you need to focus on a specific target job, then get the role’s relevant keywords front-and-center where ATS, or “applicant tracking systems,” will detect them.

And as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that is by resurrecting–but with a twist–the dusty old “objective” statement you’ve been told dozens of times to cut.

WHY YOUR “OBJECTIVE” DOESN’T MATTER

No one reads resumes for fun–only when there’s a specific job to fill. That means recruiters and hiring managers are fixated on the skill requirements of the job openings they’re looking to fill. Consequently, a resume that starts with “Objective” and focuses on what you want out of your career as the opening paragraph does nothing to help you. After all, nobody really cares what you want at this point (save that for negotiating an offer), so putting that right up top wastes prime ad space.

Headlines of all kinds, including the one at the top of this article, act as signposts, telling the reader what’s ahead–and that holds true on your resume, too. So replace “Objective” with a more relevant and compelling heading: “Performance Summary” or “Career Summary” tends to work well. Right away it flags for the reader that you’re going to tell them what you can do or what you’ve already done, rather than what you want.

Under this heading, highlight your capabilities as they relate to the demands of the target job, using the words, phrases, and acronyms listed in job postings for the type of role you’re angling for. Make sure you include objective criteria for your customers’ needs, too. That helps your resume’s discoverability by ATS, and it grabs the reader’s attention.

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WHAT GOES INTO YOUR SUMMARY

To write a good performance summary, you need to get inside the heads of your prospective employers’ customers to discover what they collectively want. Yes–think past the hiring managers and recruiters for a second, and consider the organization’s end goals instead: the people it’s trying to serve.

I’ve laid out some tips for doing this in one of my books, but for present purposes, the gist is just to think about your own capabilities as they relate to customer needs. How can what you do directly help them? The answer to that is the basis of your performance summary.

Here’s an example:

Performance Summary: 9-plus years of marcomm experience in new technologies executing high-impact, cost-efficient, media outreach for brand awareness, b2b marketing, and business and public-policy audiences. Expert in crisis communication and corporate reputation maintenance. Bilingual.
Five years managing disbursed internal and external communications teams.
Adept at developing marcomm strategy with teams spread across all EMEA cultures.

Note those keywords that are likely to get swept up by an ATS: “marcomm” for “marketing communications,” “b2b” for “business-to-business,” “EMEA” for “Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.” And the bullets help you quickly break out a couple of key highlights.

Using employers’ language to describe your capabilities, wherever you can, creates a tightly focused document that establishes a clear match between your skills and employer needs. That, after all, is your resume’s real objective.

Martin Yate is the author of Knock ’em Dead: The Ultimate Job Search Guide.

Your #Career : Look Out For These Warning Signs Before You Take That #NewJob…As Much as you Want to Make a Change Right Now, Take the Time to Make Sure it’s the Right One.

January 3, 2018/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Think about it: Have you ever landed a coveted job only to feel miserable mere weeks later, lamenting at your cubicle that if only you had listened to your gut–to have seen your boss’s disheveled desk for the warning sign it was–you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble?

In other words, you ignored a red flag. “A work-related red flag is basically a warning sign, either overt or even a gut feeling you have, that the job won’t be a good fit for you,” explains career coach Hallie Crawford. “It can also be a possible issue you sense with the company, why the job is available, your prospective boss, or a team member you’d be working with.”

A work-related red flag can be something you witness during the interview, read about in a company review, or hear about through the industry grapevine. But no matter the source, listen to your reaction to the news. “Trust yourself,” Crawford encourages. “If you sense something might be off, listen to that gut instinct and ask about it during the interview.”

1. YOUR INTERVIEWER (OR HIS SPACE) LOOKS A MESS

Picture a disheveled desk, stacks of folders strewn about, a trash can overflowing with crumpled paper—in other words, an office or a person that screams anything but I’ve got it together. This is a red flag you can’t chalk up to a bad day or a sense of disorganization, warns millennial career expert Jill Jacinto. “How we choose to visually express ourselves is part of the interview process. That is why we wear a suit, blow out our hair, or get our shoes shined. We want to show that we have it together.” And trust us: You want your future employer to put in the same kind of effort. “A few loose papers is one thing,” Jacinto concedes, “but a desk covered in papers or garbage is another.”

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2. YOU GET OFFERED THE JOB DURING THE INTERVIEW

It may seem like a very good thing if you if get offered the job before you even leave your first interview–but in reality, “this could be a red flag because there could be underlying issues,” warns Crawford. Think about it: Why is the company so desperate to fill this role? “Perhaps they aren’t able to keep someone in this position for very long, or maybe they fire employees regularly,” Crawford says. Instead of saying yes in this situation, “ask them why the position is available, and listen carefully to their answer. Ask to meet your manager and ask him what his ideal employee would be. This will give you insight into their management style and anything that may be going on.”

3. THE JOB DESCRIPTION IS NOT CLEARLY DEFINED

Leaving a job description loose-ended is a recipe for work disaster. Why? Because, as Crawford points out, if an employer can’t clearly define exactly what they want you to do, they may be keeping it vague so they can ask “employees to handle a variety of tasks for little pay” after they’re hired, says Crawford. Or, “They may be just trolling for possible employees to test the market versus actually really intending to hire someone.” If you’re still interested in the job, don’t leave the interview–and certainly don’t accept the position–until you “let the manager know you would like a clarification of the job description,” she says. If they can’t do it when asked, Crawford says, “beware.”

4. THE HIRING MANAGER SAYS HE WORKS 24/7–AND SO DOES THE STAFF

Recalls Jacinto, “I was advising a woman a few years ago who said she regrets not picking up on her current boss’s eccentric behavior. He had said during the interview that if he could, he would sleep at the office and spends all his time there. She agreed to come in on weekends for training–but the ‘training’ never stopped. She–and the rest of the staff–were expected to march into work over the weekend to have team meetings and catch-ups. Needless to say, she found a better job.” If you see similar red flags during the interview process, “run,” Jacinto warns. “If a boss all but sleeps at the office, he’ll expect you and your team to bunk down, too.”

5. THE COMPANY LOWBALLS ITS OFFER

You know what you’re worth–and you know what others make who work in that same job–because you’ve used tools such as Glassdoor’s company salaries search tool to find out. And “if you are offered less than the salary listed in the posting or lower than what they said their range was, this could be a red flag,” says Crawford. If you find yourself faced with this red flag, “Ask about benefits, but if they aren’t offering benefits or can’t define them, they [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][may just be] trying to take advantage of you.”

FastCompany.com | January 3, 2018 | BY JILLIAN KRAMER—GLASSDOOR 4 MINUTE READ

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Your #Career : Should You Apply For Your Dream Job If You’re Not Qualified?…Recruiters Weigh in with some Surprising Advice on the Importance of Being Qualified to Get the Job you Want.

November 24, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

There it is: your dream job. There’s just one problem. You don’t meet all the qualifications.

It’s a conundrum. Should you channel your inner life coach and go for it? Or should you follow the rules and wait until you have the right experience or credentials? If you sit it out, you may miss a great opportunity. On the other hand, you don’t want to waste your time or, worse, alienate hiring managers by wasting theirs.

It’s a tough question, but you should almost always err on the side of “go for it,” says career expert Cynthia Shapiro author of What Does Somebody Have to Do to Get a Job Around Here? 44 Insider Secrets That Will Get You Hired. After all, everyone has to take a job that stretches skills if they want to move ahead. Before you do, these career coaches and recruiters recommend asking yourself these six questions.

AM I 51% QUALIFIED?

Shapiro’s rule of thumb is that you should meet 51% of the listed qualifications. That’s an arbitrary estimate, but her point is that a job listing is like a house-hunter’s wish list: You ask for everything you want and understand that you’ll likely have to compromise.

“What they’re really looking for is an intangible that they can’t put in a job posting. If you’ve got 51% of what they’re looking for, you should proudly send your resume in,” she says.

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AM I MISSING REQUIREMENTS THAT ARE NECESSARY TO DO THE JOB?

Obviously, if you lack a specific degree, license, or specialized training necessary or legally required to do the job, you need to earn that before you apply. But what if you’re lacking the years of experience or some other less objective credential? Still go for it, says Maddie Stough, HR recruiting practice team leader at LaSalle Network.

For example, if the job description requires five to seven years of experience, she says, “You should be looking at it if you have three to 10 years of experience.” Use your resume and cover letter to highlight the responsibilities held and achievements within your job that align with what your stretch job will require.

CAN I EXPLAIN MY JOB PROGRESSION?

A spotty background with a year here and two years there is usually only problematic if it’s not strategic, says James Philip, managing director of executive search firm JMJ Phillip. You should be able to show that you didn’t just change jobs for the next title bump or pay bump, but that you were strategically increasing your experience and developing your skills, Phillip says.

“If they’ve just jumped jobs, there’s going to come a time when they haven’t really honed in on a craft,” he says. Be sure to highlight the career-focused reasons for making the moves you did.

IS MY RESUME A STRETCH?

First, make sure that you’re not stretching the truth on your resume to get your stretch job, Shapiro says. It’s very easy to find out if you actually held a title or hold the degree you have, and employers are increasingly likely to check references or even conduct a background check. So don’t include anything that isn’t true. But you can also show your best side without being deceitful.

When you’re writing your resume and cover letter, think of them as marketing tools, Shapiro says. Companies can usually teach job skills. Many are looking for intangible qualities like emotional intelligence, which is considered to be one of the fastest growing job skills. They also look for enthusiasm, corporate fit, attitude, and approach, which often can’t be taught, she says. Use your documents to convey how you approach challenges, look for ways to improve situations, and achieve success, she says.

HOW BIG IS THE COMPANY?

Phillips says it’s usually easier to stretch into a smaller company than a larger one. Big companies may have preliminary screening that matches resumes with job qualifications. If you’re in the applicant “slush pile,” you could be taken out of the running before you have a chance to shine in person. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to land that big-company job, he says. However, smaller firms may be more willing to take a chance on someone who is a little inexperienced.

DO I HAVE A CHAMPION?

A champion can change the equation, Stough says. If you have a contact, friend, or colleague who is giving you a warm introduction or recommendation for a stretch job, you’ve got a real advantage, she says. So before you apply, scour your network and LinkedIn contacts to see if you know someone (or know someone who knows someone, an otherwise “weak” connection) who can put your resume in play with a “thumbs up,” she says. That can go a long way toward getting you in front of hiring managers so you can sell yourself.

FastCompany.com | GWEN MORAN | 11.23.16 5:00 AM

Your #Career : 5 Hiring Trends To Watch In 2016… #3- Social media will be Increasingly Used to find Candidates. (i.e. your LinkedIn Profile)

February 19, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

As 2016 gets into full swing, we’re beginning to see several key hiring trends develop. Based on my insights as a former recruiter, I believe these themes bode well for job seekers looking to make the most of their career this year by finding a new job.

Here are five trends job seekers can leverage in finding their next great role:

1. Job offers will include more perks and benefits. According to Mercer, salary increases this year are projected to be 2.9%. So, if you’re planning on remaining in your current job, chances are your raise will not be significant (if you receive one at all).

As such, job seekers looking to increase their earning power by pursuing external opportunities should also focus on negotiating more bells and whistles in their offer. In light of the current talent shortage, employers are generally hungry for quality candidates. Seekers should leverage this not only in negotiating financial benefits like base compensation, a sign-on bonus and relocation allowance – which may be more difficult to attain in the current economic climate – but also for perks like flexible work schedules and additional time off. Candidates can expect to see offers that include ramped up benefits like unlimited personal time and extended maternity and personal leaves.

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2. Increased interest in boomerangs. The trend of employees considering returning to their former employers is on the rise. In a recent Monster poll, more than half of participants revealed that they’d consider returning to a former employer.

To that point, an additional 28% reported that they are already boomerangs. As more recruiters (and therefore employers) tap into this potential gold mine of rehires, they’re discovering the benefits of a former employee: boomerangs already know the company culture and infrastructure, which can help reduce their time to hire as well as their ramp up period.

We can expect to see more companies hosting in-person and virtual alumni events to network and re-establish rapport with their former employees, and, most importantly, build a pipeline of valuable potential rehires.

3. Social media will be increasingly used to find candidates. Back in the day, employers could only rely on resumes and cover letters to get a sense of a candidate’s qualifications. As we all know, the Internet and social media have made it much easier for them to find and research potential candidates – especially elusive talent that may not be actively looking for a job.

While resumes and cover letters are still staples of the process, expect recruiters to check out your online profiles in addition to what you have submitted – or even before you submit anything at all.

The really good news? Whether you’re looking for a job, applying or simply networking, having an active, polished online presence can make it easier for recruiters to find you and reach out about opportunities you may not have even known existed. Be reachable and, more importantly, be responsive to their emails, even if you’re not interested at the time.

4. More lucrative employee referral programs – and beyond. When I worked in corporate recruiting, all of my hiring managers shared one common hiring metric: the number one source of new hires was employee referrals.

In 2016, it’s likely employers will ramp up their referral programs for employees, as well as start extending referral bonuses externally, such as offering $100 to $500 to friends of the company and former employees. As the war for talent heats up, keep your eyes open for opportunities to refer friends and colleagues.

5. More offers will include flexibility. Until recently, it was common for candidates to be nervous about asking potential employers for flexible work arrangements.

Now more and more employers are offering flexibility as part of their employment package up front. And the options will continue to expand this year – from occasional telecommuting to staggering work hours and more. As the workplace continues to evolve, hiring practices will change along with them.

Vicki Salemi is a career expert for Monster, author, public speaker and columnist.

Forbes.com | February 18, 2016 | Vicki Salemi

#Leadership : Challenges For HR Directors In 2016…There is a Growing Trend towards Manager & Employee-Driven HR Processes Rather than HR being the Main Driver

December 30, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

In 2015, one of the notable features of the business world has been the impact that a corporate scandal can have on the reputation of a company or sector.

As Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US remarked: ‘It takes many good deeds to build a reputation and only one bad one to lose it’.

In 2015, the repercussions of the carbon emissions cheating debacle by Volkswagen continues to be felt by its customers, suppliers and employees and a catalogue of misdemeanors such as the foreign exchange rate rigging and money laundering has plagued the banking sector.

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On a macro-economic level, the population continues to age in many countries across the EU as well as the US and Japan. Germany and Japan have a population average age of 46 years while in the US this is 36 years old. The demographic profile is very different in Africa where the average age in South Africa is 25 and 15 years old in Uganda. The changing demographics within the West and in emerging markets will have implications for the talent management programs of global firms. I asked some experts to gaze into their crystal balls and give their views for 2016 in terms of talent management, leadership, culture and technology.

Reputation management will be front and centre of HR directors’ agenda, commented Rita Trehan, chief capacity officer at Rita Trehan LLC. “The Volkswagen downfall has cast a long shadow; a healthy culture gone astray. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone. Next year, the onus will be on HR to take the lead, manage the company reputation and call out risky practices that might bring down a business.”

Major skill shortages and huge changes in demographics will be on the radar of HR directors of FTSE100 firms, remarked Nick Holley, co-director of the center of HR Excellence at Henley Business School.

“I see a lot of companies have a big issue where there is shortage of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills. At the same time, we see that many FTSE100 firms have demographic problems as there are a significant proportion of baby boomers on the cusp of retirement. There is a real issue with knowledge transfer here.”

As the job market becomes more competitive and skill shortages worsen, this will place the prospective employee in a more influential position to research an employer, argued O’Connell. “Employees have more information than ever before on a prospective employer. HR needs to focus on what their employer brand is and build trust between potential employees and the business.”

In terms of talent management challenges facing global firms in 2016, there is a growing understanding within the HR industry that the annual performance review isn’t an effective way to manage people or boost performance, argued David Brennan, general manager of Achievers. “It’s a process that looks in the rear-view mirror, that’s focused on what your employee did a year ago. It’s no longer a relevant or fruitful procedure for the new generation of employees. Learning how to incorporate real-time feedback into the company’s culture will be crucial for global firms who want to see engaged and successful employees.”

Holley warned that global firms had to be careful when it came to defining ‘talent’. “It’s not just the high potential employees. Most organizations see the talent issue is around critical skills that they require to deliver their business strategy.” Holley argued that there needs to be more ‘subject-matter’ leadership within organizations. “We tend to think that leadership is about leading people but it’s also about commercial leadership, multi-cultural leadership and leading within the context of the organization.”

HR directors of multinational companies need the ability to balance the need of different business challenges arising from different regions, said O’Connell. “Immigration is an interesting challenge. There will be increasing workforce diversity and companies that embrace that diversity will see that leverage of value.”

Global organizations must consider what it means to have a multi-generational workforce and how they work together, advised Charlotte Sweeney, founder of Charlotte Sweeney Associates, a diversity and inclusion consultancy. “Organizations need to consider what employees from different generations and different life styles are looking for from an employer, whether that’s interesting work, being able to make a difference to wider communities or the rewards and recognition they receive. Research shows that the younger generation is much more vocal about what they want and don’t want from their employer and career. If companies want to be able to attract and retain future talent, then these perspectives do need to be listened to.”

Another challenge for multinational firms is how they communicate with the millennial generation especially with the increasing influence and presence of online sites that review organizations, argued O’Connell. “Employers have a real challenge here as with greater choice and influence, this generation has a depth of knowledge about companies. HR directors have to make sure they are communicating properly about their company. Glassdoor has provided authentic feedback about companies and I see the more progressive organizations respond to comments on Glassdoor, rather than ignore it.”

O’Connell warned that the HR function had to get closer to the business in 2016 in order to be more effective. “We did research recently which revealed that 50% of business leaders don’t value the analytics that HR provides for them. HR is taking a technology-focused approach but it needs to provide the data that the business unit values.”

Technology will play a pivotal role for the HR function in 2016, commented Simon Constance, partner, people advisory services at EY. “I think that 2016 will be the year that automation hits the administrative processes and we’re going to see an explosion of artificial intelligence. Automation will take a swathe of process roles out in call centers. Junior analysis roles will also be hit by automation.”

Dominique Jones, Vice-President of Human Resources at Halogen Software believes that there is a growing trend towards manager and employee-driven HR processes rather than HR being the main driver. “To support this, HR technology will provide employees and managers a central view of all ongoing performance and development activities, and a simpler way to review and revise goals, development plans and gather and provide feedback across multiple devices.”

Forbes.com | December 30, 2015 | Karen Higginbottom ,CONTRIBUTOR

Your #Career : Beyond #LinkedIn — Using Social Media For Your Job Search…It’s no Secret that LinkedIn is a Powerful Job Search Tool. It Can Help you Expand your #Network, gain Job Prospects, Grab the Attention of #Recruiters & More.

December 27, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

It’s no secret that LinkedIn is a powerful job search tool. It can help you expand your network, gain job prospects, grab the attention of recruiters and more. There are many other ways to leverage social media to give your job hunt a boost, though. Try these tips during your job search in 2016, to get a leg up on the competition.

Scope out Instagram. If a potential employer has a company Instagram account, the photos can offer some serious intel into the day-to-day happenings of its office. The No. 1 question an Instagram account will answer: What is the dress code really like? This helps get rid of any confusion or anxiety over an appropriate interview outfit. Additionally, you might also find that the company is hosting an event, supporting a charity or partaking in fun team-building exercises. These are all great for giving you a better understanding of the culture and helping you make genuine conversation during an interview.

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Read the blog of an insider. Find a list of employees who work within your desired department via LinkedIn to see if any promote themselves as bloggers or keynote speakers. If yes, reading an employee’s industry blog can provide insight into how the people at a potential employer think and work. And if your hiring manager is the one with a blog, it will offer a wealth of information and ideas to discuss during your interview, making you look incredibly smart and tuned in to the company.

Follow on Twitter. A Twitter account can provide an up-to-date feed of important news, trends and even job opportunities. Plus, if the company is small, interacting on Twitter could help provide you with name recognition for when you submit a resume. However, make sure that your Twitter page is squeaky clean and reflects your professional goals before connecting.

Take LinkedIn even further. Many people use LinkedIn as only a digital version of their resume, but there are so many other ways to showcase your skills and experience on the social platform. For example: Ensure you’re getting the most out your LinkedIn recommendations. Upload portfolio examples. Join industry groups. Follow prospective employers and influential people in your industry.

And my final piece of advice: Social media is a quick and easy way to gain information and make connections, but don’t take it too far. You shouldn’t be hounding a hiring manager via Twitter after an interview, sending messages on LinkedIn when it’s not appropriate or stalking employees through Instagram.

Lisa Quast, author of the book, Secrets of a Hiring Manager Turned Career Coach: A Foolproof Guide to Getting the Job You Want. Every Time. Join me on Twitter @careerwomaninc

Forbes.com | December 27, 2015 | Lisa Quast

#Leadership : Why #Millennials Don’t Want To Work For You(& your Company)….Millennials will Represent 40% of the Total #Workforce by 2020. Like It or Not, They are Critical to the #Success & Sustainability of your #Business . If they Don’t Want to #Work for You, your #Organization will Die.

December 16, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

If you want to attract and retain the best talent, you need to face reality and start thinking radically different. Don’t address the issue by trying to design more interesting jobs. Millennials don’t want jobs. They want lives.

Instead of focusing on milking whatever you can out of the younger generation workforce before they move on in 1.5 to 3 years, you need to stop and listen. Organizations themselves are causing these low tenure stats, not Gen Y and Z.

Younger generation workers are not shy about telling you what they want. Their way of looking at the world and life is often misunderstood by later generation managers. They don’t buy into the concept of sitting at a cluttered desk ten hours a day trying to look busy for a boss. They see a bigger picture, leveraged by technology. This means the ability to add meaningful value from anywhere at anytime.

Despite what you think you can get out of this new talent pool in the short run, it is overshadowed by the benefits of a long tenured relationship. In all cases, a revolving door of good talent is expensive and disruptive to your business and customers.

Here are four ways you can attract and retain the best of Gen Y and Z and redirect low tenure trends.

1. Create An Entrepreneurial Culture

72% of Millennials would like to be their own boss. Being your own boss usually means you can work when, where and how you like as long as you are delivering results. It offers freedom, flexibility and eliminates the need for conversations around the dead notion of work/life balance. With current technology, work and life today are fungible – they look the same. Being your own boss is a lifestyle, not a job.

One of LinkedIn’s core values is “Act like an owner.” The statement is more than words to them. They built their culture around this tenet which mirrors the life of an entrepreneur: unlimited vacation in line with business needs, “inDays” one Friday a month where employees can work on personal projects, $5,000 a year for professional education, a platform called “Incubator” allowing employees to pitch ideas to executives, an opportunity to compete for up to a $10,000 donation to an employee’s favorite charity or to start their own, and personal grants to allow opportunities to be involved in independent charity work.

I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who works at LinkedIn’s Mountain View, CA headquarters. We ate at their on-site café. It reminded me of an expensive Las Vegas buffet I had paid for a week earlier. Here employees take what they want and eat for free. They don’t even need to checkout with someone before heading to their table. But it gets better. They also allow family and friends to visit employees for meals and eat for free, too. I was told that on Friday mornings employees have their parents, grandparents, children, and friends eating breakfast with them. LinkedIn does not track who eats the meals. It trusts its employees to enjoy the benefit as part of work-life integration, not balance.

If you embrace Gen Y and Z’s entrepreneurial spirit and build a culture to support, rather than crush it, they will not need to leave your company to fulfill this desire. In any case, results are all that really matter. If you are focusing on anything else, you have it wrong. Plus, in many cases outside pursuits enhances an employee’s ability to do their job and positively promotes the organizational brand to the younger generations desiring such flexibility. Arizona based software company InfusionSoft actively encourages employees to have side businesses to strengthen their ability to better serve the organization’s customers. From a customer perspective, it works.

Giving your employees the flexibility and freedom – where possible – to be their own boss with a focus exclusively on results, produces greater employee engagement, loyalty and ultimately better business results.

Don’t offer flexibility under a false pretense though. If you say it is okay to work from home, don’t make employees feel guilty for using the benefit. If you ask employees to forward you annual personal objectives along with business ones, read, acknowledge, address and support both. False and insincere organizational practices propagate the low tenure stats attributed to Gen Y and Z.

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2. Think Like A Trauma Ward

Over my career I’ve had the chance to work in many diverse industries, including 11 years in the medical industry. When I think of effective teams and the concept of true collaboration for a common purpose, there is no better example than a medical trauma ward. On such a team, competition, silos and politics are dangerous. Everyone must be unified and focused on a single outcome to achieve success. It is a matter of life or death.

88% of Millennials prefer to collaborate versus compete with others. This goes against the grain of many traditional organizations whose employees and departments spend more time competing internally against themselves versus their outside competition. Gen Y and Z don’t want to work in such an environment.

The new workforce is interested in working together to make the world a better place. An organization that truly embraces and lives a “one team” mentality will attract and retain the best of Gen Y and Z.

3. Facilitate Life Success

A critical step towards continuous organizational improvement and attracting/retaining the best of the younger generation workforce is the recognition that people’s lives matter on a whole. Gen Y and Z get this and demands it of their employers.

“Help people succeed in life” has been my motto since I started working in human resources 16 years ago. This means sincerely caring about the success of people beyond the job they are doing for you – 360 degrees – their job, career, personal interests, health, happiness, family and friends. When I was asked to launch an employee engagement initiative at Tesla Motors this year, it was with this goal in mind. Tesla360 – built on my Engagement360 platform – was aimed at enhancing the level of organizational care toward Tesla’s employees in order to facilitate success at work and at home. Such care has been proven to drive high employee engagement and business results.

Organizations are not special, but the way they care about the success of their people is. While Tesla is in the early stages of this transition, it understands the importance of creating a successful life for its people to maximize their engagement, retention, business results and ultimately their ability to change the world.

Supporting the life success of your employees requires leaders and managers who are strong coaches and mentors. They should focus on both short- and long-term career and personal objectives. 79% of Millennials say this is important to them.

4. Communicate How You Are Changing The World

I was recently honored to be the keynote speaker at AAPEX 2015, the world’s largest auto care industry event in the world, held in Las Vegas. It attracted around 150,000 people. At this event the industry spent a good amount of time talking about how auto care affects the lives of people around the world and keeps humanity moving.

Without this nearly $500 billion industry, many could not get safely to work and back home each day, drop off and pick up their children from school, enjoy family vacations or transport loved ones to deliver babies or to doctors to keep them healthy. This same industry also aids policemen and firemen in protecting communities. It helps gardeners and sanitation workers keep cities clean and maintained, and also ensures essential vehicles build roads, buildings and homes.

In order to attract and retain top talent from Gen Y and Z to career opportunities, it is imperative that you and they know how the required work is having a positive impact on the world. This understanding and alignment is what will excite the next-generation workforce and where the true magic happens when it comes to engaging people, fulfilling organizational purpose, and driving business results.

Most businesses are not established to make money. They are started for a higher reason. If you begin right, the money follows. Imagine if the visionary Walt Disney had stood in front of a group of potential supporters and said, “I want to build a theme park centered around an animated mouse to make money.”

Know your industry and organization’s purpose. Know how you make the world a better place. If you can’t connect the dots, Gen Y and Z will look elsewhere. 64% of Millennials say it’s a priority for them. GE’s current career opportunitycommercials proclaiming, “Get yourself a world-changing job” makes this clear.

To gain further clarity on your organizational purpose, ask and answer:

How does my organization positively affect the lives of others?

Why was my organization started in the first place?

One of my favorite quotes is, “If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.” The next generation workforce is not interested in work. They are not lazy. They don’t think the world owes them a living. They want more out of life and want to leave the world a better place because they lived. If skilled and trained leaders and managers effectively communicate and align organizational and employee purpose, focus on outcomes not office hours, sincerely care about the life success of their people, plus pull employees together through shared purpose, then organizations will experience greater employee and customer engagement, less short-tenured turnover, and greater business success.

If you let Gen Y and Z be who they are – what makes them great – and build a culture to support them, your talent pipeline will be plentiful and your retention high.

For more information about me and my new book How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love and companion recording, Surrender to Your Purpose go toLouisEfron.com, Amazon.com and iTunes.

Forbes.com | December 13, 2015 | Louis Efron

Your #Career : 7 Reasons Why Recruiters Aren’t Calling You…Even If you Don’t Want another Job, #Recruiter Relationships are Helpful. You get Market News, #Compensation Guidelines, & the Flattery that Comes with Being Pursued.

August 8, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Recruiter Calls are a Sign That you are Marketable & Visible. You Want to Get Recruiter Calls. If you Aren’t, Which of the 7 Mistakes are you Guilty Of?

You have probably heard this lucky scenario: a gainfully employed professional is busily doing his/her job when he/she is contacted by a recruiter hiring for a great opportunity. Sometimes this results in a hire – just like that, a new job without all the job search effort. At the very least, the professional hears market news, gets a real-time snapshot of his/her market value, and gets a confidence boost that a recruiter would think to call. Has this happened to you? Are recruiters calling you? If you’re not getting these opportunistic calls, here are seven possible reasons:

You are invisible online.

So much of candidate research is done online using social media, particularly LinkedIn. In my recruiting activity, I searched LinkedIn using keywords reflecting target skills, companies or types of experience. Would your profile show up if a recruiter were searching? Does your online profile comprehensively describe your skills and experience? Don’t assume that a well-written resume is enough because you may not get approached and even have a chance to send a resume.

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You are inactive online.

Sometimes I would hear about a candidate, but not much besides a name, and I would check LinkedIn for more detail…only to find a blank profile with one connection. Not only do I have no information to move forward, but I don’t have any way to contact you even if I wanted to – the fact that you have few connections means you’re not active, and you probably wouldn’t respond to my message. Some recruiters may even take your inactivity as a sign that you’re not up to date on social media and therefore not up to date in general.
Your role doesn’t correspond to obvious keywords.

It’s true that some candidates are easier to target passively than others. If your role uses a specific skill set (e.g., programming in a certain language) or can be described very specifically (e.g., fundraising) then keywords will more easily point to you. If your role is in general management or strategy or something more generic, then it’s harder to get swept up in a keyword search. However, you can increase your odds by putting the keywords that are relevant. Your title may be a generic one (e.g., Marketing Manager) but the description of your role can include specific types of marketing (e.g., digital/online, direct mail, customer segmentation) that are searchable.

Your current employer isn’t branded, leading or trending.

Another popular search item is company names. If you work for a household name, a market leader or the hot start-up covered by lots of media, then you have an advantage because a recruiter will search on those companies and find you in the process. But even if you work for a small mom and pop, you can improve your chances by including brand names where you can. Perhaps your clients are Fortune 500 companies and you can mention a few sample names. Perhaps your company routinely beats out a brand name and you can include a mention of this when you describe your employer. Your alma mater or previous employers may also be brand names, which is another reason why a comprehensive, detailed profile is critical.

You’re not in the public domain.

Beyond social media, recruiters also search more broadly – conferences, trade publications, professional associations. If you have appeared on a conference panel, posted a guest blog or opinion letter for your industry rag, or a current member of your professional group, then your name is more likely to surface in the places recruiters typically research. The more you’re out there, the more likely you’ll be found.

You don’t come recommended.

The most relied-upon source of candidates for recruiters is word-of-mouth. In all of my searches, but especially my executive-level searches, hearing your name from other executives guarantees that you’ll hear from me. Make your name the one that your network remembers. First of all, you need to know enough people. Secondly, they need know what you do. Finally, you need to keep in touch so you stay front-of-mind if a recruiter calls them.

You didn’t respond.

Maybe you are great about managing your online profile, your public persona and your network, and recruiters do call you…but you don’t respond. Did you set your LinkedIn profile to deliver messages? Have you updated your email address on all social profiles to an address you actually check? If you get a call, do you return it in a timely fashion? Even if you aren’t looking and are too busy to bother, missing a phone call now may mean you won’t be contacted again.

Even if you don’t want another job, recruiter relationships are helpful. You get market news, compensation guidelines, and the flattery that comes with being pursued. Recruiter calls are also a sign that you are marketable and visible. You want to get recruiter calls. If you aren’t, which of the seven mistakes are you guilty of?

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart® career coaching. She has worked with executives from American Express, Citigroup, Condé Nast, Gilt, Goldman Sachs, Google, McKinsey, and other leading firms. She’s also a stand-up comic, so she’s not your typical coach. Connect with Caroline on Google+.

Forbes.com | August 1, 2015 | Caroline Ceniza-Levine

#BestofFSCBlog : #JobSearch -Five Things Your Recruiter Won’t Tell You. When You’re Working with a Recruiter, you Have to Ask a Lot of Questions.

February 7, 2015/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

If you work in business or the professional world, it will be helpful to you to have a relationship with a third-party recruiter, sometimes called a search professional or recruiter. Not every job-seeker has a recruiter-friendly resume, but many job-seekers do.

What’s a recruiter-friendly resume? It’s a resume that looks like what the hiring manager expects to see, or as we say at Human Workplace, ‘a resume that makes you look like you were born and raised in a petri dish to do this job.’

Recruiters are paid by employers to find them candidates they can’t find on their own, so if your resume is less conventional, or if it’s off-beat or quirky, you might not be a recruiter-friendly candidate. If not, that’s okay! There are plenty of other job search channels still available to you.

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What Skill Sets Do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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A well-established, credible and human recruiter in your corner is an incredible asset. That’s not only true for job-seekers. It’s true for hiring managers and HR leaders, too! When I was an HR leader, I relied on my search partners to fill jobs we couldn’t have filled on our own. They were an extension of our team.

In every field you’ll find solid and upright folks and people who have no business handing out business cards. We hear from job-seekers way too often who have horror stories to tell about unscrupulous or not-ready-for-prime-time recruiters who wasted their time, steered them wrong and crushed their mojo — but only temporarily!

When you’re working with a recruiter, you have to ask a lot of questions. You can’t blindly follow your recruiter’s advice. You have to determine whether your recruiter is a credible advocate for you, first.Here are questions to ask a recruiter when you’re contemplating allowing him or her to represent you in your job search.

Here are five things your recruiter may not tell you unless you ask, ask, and ask again. Don’t take ‘no answer’ for an answer!

1- They Won’t Tell You Their Client Has a Toxic Workplace

One Monday morning I saw a new job opening posted in my news feed. “This is a great company!” said the recruiter who posted the ad. I had heard his name before. I wrote back to him right away. “I might have the perfect candidate for this job,” I said in my message. “What is it that makes this a great company, in your opinion?” The recruiter wrote back. “Are you kidding or serious?” he asked in his message. “It’s a job opening. It pays you money that you use to buy things.”

I wrote back. “I’m serious,” I said. “Do you just put ‘It’s a great company?’ in all your job ads, automatically?” The recruiter wrote back again. “Grow up,” he said. “Everyone knows that is filler.”

Imagine being so cynical that you’d add “Great company!” to every job ad, call it ‘filler’ and expect everyone to know that it’s not true? You deserve to work with people who deserve your talents.

Ask your recruiter to tell you why you should consider taking any job s/he’s proposing to you. What makes the company great? Ask for specifics! As my friend Marla says, “Whenever a company’s recruiting literature drones on about trust, that means there’s no trust. When they have it, they don’t need to talk about it.”

Let’s remember how recruiters get paid. They get paid to fill job openings. They get paid when you accept the job offer. You only have to stay for ninety days. If you bail within ninety days, the recruiter has to find someone else. Are they going to tell you it’s a toxic work environment? Not if they want you to take the job, they won’t!

The recruiter will not have to sit in your chair and do your job. That will be your burden, if you walk into the wrong place. Ask a lot of questions about culture. Ask about turnover. Ask the recruiter why the job is open, and don’t get all your research from your recruiter! Check out the organization’s Glassdoor reviews as well.

2- They Won’t Tell You If The Company’s In Trouble

We had a client years ago who went on a job interview and was surprised to walk through row after row of empty cubicles when she got there. The cubicles weren’t the sort of empty cubicles that scream “We’re trying to find people to fill these cubicles!” They were the kind of cubicles that say “Don’t work here! Three-quarters of the staff has already been laid off, and no one has taken the time to get rid of all these empty cubicles!”

Our client asked some pointed questions about the company’s future. The in-house recruiter was huffy. When our client got home, she called the third-party recruiter who had sent her to the interview. “Well, they’re going through a restructuring, and you’ll help them turn the corner,” her recruiter said.

Our client got suspicious. She started digging around and found the employer on every analyst’s list of companies most likely to declare bankruptcy. She cut her interview process short. The last thing the headhunter said to her was “You’re making a big mistake.”

The company went out of business a few months later. You can’t blindly go on a job interview assuming that because someone is hiring, they must be doing well. Organizations hire for a lot of different reasons. They sometimes hire new people to wind up the business and turn out the lights. That’s fine if it’s a consulting job at a healthy hourly rate.

Nobody wants a full-time job that’s not only going to end in a few months but also that’s going to elicit the question from every interviewer you ever meet in your life going forward, “Why did you go to work for those guys just as they were tanking?” Good question!

3- They Won’t Tell You It’s a Dead-End Job

When my youngest was a baby, I had a regular babysitter, Emily, who was a student at our local university. She moved to Chicago and got a job right away when she graduated. One day Emily got a call at work from a headhunter. She called me to tell me. “So exciting!” she said. “He told me about a better job at a company in downtown Chicago.”

“What makes it a better job than the one you have?” I asked her.

“He asked me some questions about my current job and said this new opportunity is a better job,” Emily said.

“Oh dear!” I said. “He will say that to get you to go to the interview. That’s how he gets paid. It may be a better job, or it may not. Most jobs don’t have six weeks vacation and free grad-school tuition at a top university the way your current job does.”

“I didn’t think of that,” said Emily. “The headhunter said one thing that was odd, I thought.”

“What was that?” I asked, my maternal instincts going on full alert.

“He told me not to mention the words ‘career path’ at the interview,” said Emily. “Evidently at this company they don’t like to have their job applicants ask about the career path.”

“What!?” I snorted. “That means there is no career path. That means it’s a dead-end job. They want you to take the job and come to work at the same desk for the next fifty years. Maybe you should go on the interview just for the learning experience. If you do, I have one suggestion. Make sure and use the term ‘career path’ at least once in every sentence, just to see what happens.”

Emily did just that. She said the interviewer nearly fell out of her chair. Emily never heard from the company or the headhunter again, but she got a tremendous job with a consulting firm soon after.

4- They Won’t Tell You When The Employer’s Requests Become Unreasonable

Remember how third-party recruiters get paid. They don’t get a dime unless you accept the employer’s offer. An unscrupulous recruiter will encourage you (or even browbeat you) to stay in a broken and mojo-crushing recruiting pipeline. If you drop out, they lose.

They’ll tell you to do whatever the employer asks you to, down to creating free work for the employer and interviewing four, five or six times with different people. They’ll tell you to take endless online tests and putting up with delays and weeks of radio silence. They’ll tell you ignore red flags that scream “Believe me, you don’t want to work here!”

Know before you get into any recruiting pipeline how many interviews are reasonable (three visits to one employer is the limit we suggest — if they can’t make a decision in three visits, they’re too wimpy to be mentors who can help you) and what you will and won’t do before you see an offer letter.

I don’t want you to perform work for free. A good rule of thumb is this: one request for one one-hour project to see how you operate is reasonable during a hiring process. That could be the creation of a writing sample or some lines of code. After that, you can meet any additional requests for free work with the soft reply “I’d be happy to complete that project on a consulting basis. Shall I fill you in on my hourly rates?”

5- They Won’t Tell You To Refuse A Lowball Offer

Last on our list, a skeevy recruiter who’s trying to shove you into a new sardine can won’t tell you when a job offer is below market. They’ll tell you just the opposite. They want you to accept the job, so they’ll tell you the offer looks great. Way back in 1979 when I first hit Chicago as a nineteen-year-old punk rocker, I went looking for an office job.

I didn’t realize when I moved to Chicago that the drinking age there was 21. In New York the drinking age was 18, so I could work in good restaurants that served alcohol. I made great money waiting tables. I did the same thing when I got to Chicago, but when the outdoor cafe where I worked closed up for the winter, I needed a new job.

That’s when I got the bad news: I couldn’t work in any restaurant with a liquor license. I had to go indoors to type and answer the phone.

I walked into an employment agency and filled out some forms. Right away they sent me to interviews — one miserable environment after another. They said “It will be wonderful if you can get four dollars an hour” even though I saw tons of jobs in the Chicago Tribune advertised for five dollars an hour or more.

“Why are you diminishing my experience?” I asked my employment counselor. “Is it to prepare me to take the first offer I get, whatever that offer is?”

She nearly fainted in front of me.

Remember how recruiters get paid. If you don’t take the offer, they don’t get a penny. There are recruiters who will tell you that you have nothing of value to offer and that they’ll have a hard time placing you. Walk away from anybody who insults you or denigrates your background.

They will tell you that your skills are a dime a dozen. Don’t believe them! The first person who has to believe in you, is you.

Whether we’re talking about employers or recruiters, you have to remember that only the people who get you, deserve you. Take a huge grain of salt with everything you hear from a person whose financial interests lie in getting you hired into a new job, and keep your B.S. meter close at hand!

Forbes.com | February 6, 2015 | Liz Ryan