How to Separate Good Clients from Bad

How to Separate Good Clients from Bad As a sales recruiter, you don’t want to find yourself stuck with clients who place little value on the recruiting process, or worse yet, fail to treat employees and that precious talent you’ve been working so hard to build trust with the respect they deserve. Unfortunately, far too many recruiters allow themselves to fall into this trap. It’s no walk in the park working with a client who doesn’t value recruiting or understand the needs of their employees. High turnover rates and other hiring issues are sure to follow when you’re stuck with a bad client, and in these situations, everybody loses. So how do you avoid landing a lousy client? Here’s how you can spot the wolves in sheep’s clothing: Why many commonly fail to understand recruiting There’s no denying that recruiting can be a complicated process, but unfortunately, many companies (especially startups) fail to understand just how important this process can be. Weak recruiting efforts can have a huge impact on a company’s overall well-being. Whether a startup is unable to fill a position for several months or is only able to hire a weak candidate, the potential fallout from weak recruiting can lead to costly delays and decreases in output. While many companies attempt to alleviate this problem by hiring a professional recruiting agency to identify top candidates and evangelize on their behalf, they fail to realize that recruiting involves much more than getting candidates to walk through the door for an interview. In reality, the recruiting process should be fully engrained in everything a company does. Think about it. Company culture and values have a direct impact on every aspect of a client’s businessâ€"from the way they treat their sales staff to how they approach the candidate interview process. If they don’t treat your employees fairly, that will bleed over into recruiting, and top candidates will flee. Far too many companies fail to take this “big picture” approach to their recruiting efforts, and as a result, they tend to focus on the wrong priorities or even mistreat candidates during the interview process. When you’re on the dark side The aforementioned failure to understand recruiting lays the groundwork for disaster. This is the root cause of many of the issues recruiters face with their clients, which leads to a bad experience for everyone involved. While it isn’t always easy to spot a bad client from the get-go, there are a few warning signs that should always set off alarm bells in your head. Poor clients often have terrible communication skills, a problem which stems from their unwillingness to prioritize the recruiting process. They may not be transparent about what they need and why, are frequently unable to discuss (or even consider) ways in which they might need to improve, and are prone to flipping the script at the drop of a hat. In short, they have no interest in collaborating with you to create a cohesive, positive recruiting experience. Not only does this make it more difficult for you to do your job as a recruiter, it also tends to result in a negative candidate experience. Too often, these bad clients don’t really care about the candidate experience at all. They might low-ball their candidates to try to save a few bucks or play mind games during the interview process to gain an imagined competitive advantage. When this happens, it doesn’t matter how skilled you are at approaching potential candidates. You probably won’t have much success in helping your client onboard new talent when every other element of recruitment is terrible. When you’re in the good zone The above situation is an absolute nightmare for recruiters. After all, recruiting is so much more than the evangelizing you do on behalf of a client. It’s about creating a seamless process that carefully guides top talent into a job where they’ll be the right fit. This isn’t something that can be accomplished 100% on your own. That’s why the best clients are generally those that already have a decent understanding of how the recruiting process should work. They know what kind of talent they’re looking for. They’ve worked hard to create a strong company culture, and have taken efforts to engrain that culture into the candidate experience to help potential employees feel valuedâ€"regardless of whether they’re hired or not. These clients don’t view recruiting as drudgery, but rather, as a crucial part of what drives their company forward. At the same time, however, they’ve recognized that they can’t get the results they need on their own. A quality client is so much more than the mere opposite of the “dark side” clients described earlier. These clients value open and direct communication, providing you with helpful insights regarding what they need, while at the same time, being willing to listen and adapt their recruiting approach in order to achieve better results. They understand that they don’t know everything, and are willing to rely on your input to make changes for the better. Even more importantly, however, these quality clients have created a work environment where candidates want to stay around for the long haul. They offer engaged leadership, fantastic growth opportunities and of course, fair compensation. They do their absolute best to demonstrate their commitment to their employees during the recruiting process to create a positive candidate experience and find the right fit. The best clients realize that recruitment is a collaborative effort. It’s about working together to identify and approach top talent, and then providing a meaningful recruiting experience that will draw talent to the company. Why this matters It’s tempting to think that the success or failure of any recruiting effort depends entirely on the quality of a recruiting specialist, but this simply isn’t the case. Experience has shown, time and time again, that this is a partnership. When your client values recruiting and makes an active effort to understand what their role is in this process, you’ll be in a much better position to successfully reach out to top candidates. As you collaborate to set achievable recruiting goals in line with your client’s values, you’ll also be able to bring in the right talent. Long story short: when this happens, your client will be happy. Their new employees will be happy. But most importantly, you’ll be successful in accomplishing what you’ve set out to do. Wrapping up Identifying the wolves lurking in the woods of the recruiting world will save you a lot of headaches and a lot of wasted time. As you identify the good clients from the bad and choose to only work with the best, you’ll be better equipped to lay the foundations of your own successful career as you work together to create a strong recruiting platform. About the author: Amy Volas is the founder and “Chieftain” of Avenue Talent Partners.

New Years Resolutions for Your Career

New Year’s Resolutions for Your Career We hope that 2013 is your year to find a new job.   Since you’re making all those other New Year’s resolutions, why not add a couple to perk up your career prospects?   Here are a couple of suggestions that will add value to your resume and that can be accomplished in your spare time.   Even if you’re not in the job market right now, keeping these resolutions will boost your productivity and increase your chances of achieving your next career goal. 1. Improve your typing speed. Computers â€" and keyboards â€" are a fact of life now whether you’re in business or in school, and being an awkward typist can really have a negative impact on your productivity.   Almost every business executive is expected to produce his or her own work these days, so adding 20-40 words per minute to your speed can help you finish projects more quickly.   You also spend less time on the manual process and more time on the mental process, which is what your company hopes it’s paying you for. A simple and inexpensive tool to help you increase your speed is Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing ®, a software program available for as little as $19.99. This self-paced tutorial program features customized lessons, motivating speed tests and progress reports, and dictation practice.   The program bills itself as equally effective for the young student typist, the busy executive, or the administrative professional seeking to improve skills. 2. Expand your network.  Make a resolution to meet and stay in touch with at least one new person a month with whom you can exchange information on career issues.   If you’re an organized person who manages your network well, make it a goal to add three people. They may be someone in your industry or in an industry you’re thinking about for a career move in the future. One great way to meet new people is through volunteer projects. When you volunteer in the community, you may find yourself working on a committee side by side with an executive or business owner.   Volunteering is a great way to show others what you can really do, and your fellow volunteers will remember your talent, leadership and energy later when they talk to others about you. Many people expand their networks at Chamber of Commerce mixers or public meetings. Once you’ve met someone who’s easy to talk to and has connections to subjects that interest you, don’t let the new acquaintance die out.   Send the person a note or email telling him how much you enjoyed meeting him, and get in the habit of touching base when you hear something that might be of interest to him/her.   The difference between a person in your network and a friend is that you’ll primarily exchange business information with one, and personal information with the other. In a job search, you go to your friends for moral support and to your network for information and leads. 3. Start following a thought leader.  Following blogs (like this one) is a great way to bring creative thinking into your inbox every day. Whether youre looking for career advice, following industry trends, or trying to become more creative or more inspired, theres a smart person out there writing for you. I get daily inspiration from Seth Godin  and the Harvard Business Review online.  If youre looking for a list of great business blogs to follow, try this one. Your body needs healthy food to stay nourished and be strong; so does your brain. Are you following any great thought leaders? Comment and let me know what   or who you consider to be a must-read. Happy New Year.

7 Tips for an Effective One Page Resume

7 Tips for an Effective One Page Resume You have more than a decade’s worth of experience, yet you are being asked to make a one-page resume. Writing an effective one-page resume is possible, so we offer 7 tips on how to achieve the best one-page resume.The best resume length advice will always help a recruiter, hiring manager, or employer read your resume in six-seconds.1. Stick to the “Quantitative” ResultsIt is no secret that the right keywordswill help get your resume seen. Companies know job candidates do this. They do not care so much about “what you claim to do”. They care if you know “how to do it”. Quantitative results show evidence that you can execute. An effective one-page resume shows numbers that prove your qualifications, thus making your resume shorter. As one hiring manager explained to me: “We need to know you can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.” 2. Leave out Irrelevant ExperienceYour LinkedIn resume and CV is the place for your career “autobiography”. An effective one-page re sume sticks to relevant experience. If you are applying for a position as a Technical Project Manager, for example, some resume length advice would be to leave off all the side jobs you took while job searching. This means you may have several “best one page resumes”, one for each job title you can be hired for.3. Leave out Irrelevant EducationA one-page resume is easier to achieve if you leave out the irrelevant education. Your high school education is almost always irrelevant on any job application unless you are just starting your career. Even then, they only want to know that you completed high school.4. Using Smaller Font SizesWarning: This does not mean the best one-page resume needs to be seen under a microscope. An effective one-page resume can happen with a font size of 10 or 11. Going lower than that can leave the hiring manager squinting and reaching for their glasses. A one-page resume is intended to save time and make for easier reading. A tiny font may fit more, bu t then it is more difficult to read.5. Get All Your Contact Information on One LineAn effective one-page resume has all the contact information on the top line. In the past, it was common to make your name look like a theater marquis. But that was before short attention spans, online job applications, and attaching files to emails in which your name appears several times. Having all the info on the top line also makes it much simpler to find.6. Keep All Job Descriptions to a Bullet-Pointed, One Line of SpacingYou may have had a complex job in the past but that does not mean your description of a skill should be more than one line. Your resume length advice here would be to cut down the number of words used to describe a task or skill. Make sure it fits on one line per task or skill. For example: “Led testing and development plan for next-generation Automated Driving Technologies.” There is a whole story behind that one line. The best one-page resume will almost offer a teaser to get an interview, in which the job candidate can expand on the full story of experience.7. Kill the Objectives or Other Useless LinesCareer objectives on resumes lost their meaning as companies realized the employee should focus more on the candidate’s ability to help with a company’s objective. An effective one-page resume will have no objectives and no lines stating “references available upon request” or “salary negotiable”.Note: Summaries have not lost their meaning. There is a big difference between summaries and objectives.Above all, an effective one-page resume is all about “impact”; those times in your career that you achieved productive results and what you did to get such results!

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese How to Get Exactly What You Want at Work

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese How to Get Exactly What You Want at Work The world of businessis one continuous negotiation, so if you dont negotiate well you could damage your career, lose out on big opportunities for your organization and be thought of as weak and inept. Research shows, however, how anyone can negotiate better and get more of what they want. If you reach an agreement in a negotiation, you probably feel pretty terrific. That is, until you realize you didnt get what you wanted. Not even close. Now youre not feeling so great. Youre not alone if you feel defeated instead of elated after a negotiation. Thats because many people enter into negotiations without a plan and so they dont emerge with what theyre really after. Whether its a pay raise, a new customer contract or even a better role in a team project, there is a way to come out of a negotiation with better results for yourself, says Margaret A. Neale, author of Getting More of What You Want with co-author Thomas Z. Lys. The biggest mistake people make is that they look at negotiations as a one-size-fits-all, Neale says. But this is a battle, and youve got to have the mindset to get what you want. That means that just trying to wing it, or hoping the other person will be swayed by your charming personality or cave into your bullying, is a recipe for failure. Instead, Neale says that those who hope tonegotiate successfully, no matter their job title or experience, need to understand that negotiations are really about(read more here)

How Does a Resume Writing Service Work?

How Does a Resume Writing Service Work?When you hire a resume writing service, one of the things you have to look for is the level of assistance it provides in the creation of your resume. To help you understand this better, I will give you a quick introduction to the Ciso Intelligence Community.The Ciso Intelligence Community is a recruiting strategy made up of career professionals in the various fields of work. These professionals use a combination of search engine optimization and social media marketing to find job candidates and apply them to potential employers. They keep their resumes on their own sites for people to view and then publish to various job boards.This recruitment strategy was developed as a direct result of the fast development of technology. The supply of people with the skills that a company needs to fulfill its needs is limited. That's where the Ciso Intelligence Community comes in.A person who wants to use the resume writing service has to submit his or her re sume. This will be analyzed by the service provider to see if it is appropriate for the company. If it's not, they will send it back to the person who submitted it.The resume will then be edited to include relevant information about the person. This includes the skills the person has and the amount of experience they have worked on.It is important to remember that a resume that is being used by someone other than the one who wrote it will only be accepted if it contains the same type of information as the original. After all, it's someone else's resume. So, just make sure that the information is appropriate.There are many companies out there that provide quality product. You should find one that will give you the best of both worlds. They are the ones who will handle your resume, give you the most relevant information and the one who will ensure that you get your resume posted to all the major job boards.I know that I have read about the Ciso Intelligence Community before. I know th at this particular resume writing service has been around for a while. So, if you are looking for the one who will not only work with you but who will also make sure that your resume is in a format that it will be displayed on, this is the company for you.

5 SMART steps for networking conversations - Hire Imaging

5 SMART steps for networking conversations - Hire Imaging If you are in a job search or managing your career, the conversations you have will blend getting your message out with gathering workplace information. Try using this 5-step SMART approach with your general contacts â€" one that differs somewhat from conversations with contacts inside your target organizations. S = Summarize your message M = Marketing plan A = Ask questions R = Referrals T = Trade information Here’s the agenda. A good average meeting time is 20 to 30 minutes. I’ve suggested time allowances for each part to illustrate each one’s overall weight. Summarize your message Start with your professional goal and positioning statement. If needed, use your exit statement (why you left last employer). This gives your contacts general information. When describing your professional goal (objective), give two to three examples of positions typical of that goal. State why you believe you are qualified, mentioning your competencies. Use your success stories to support your assertions. Sharing this information will enable the person to understand you and how they can help. Keep it brief. (2 minutes) Marketing plan Explain your marketing plan and provide a copy of your target list. What are the key elements? You’ve already listed a goal, so move on to a description of your targeted industries, geographical and organizational size preferences, etc. Talk about why you’ve chosen these. Be ready with a list of targeted companies that meet your criteria. (3-4 minutes) Ask questions Ask about organizations on your target list and their concerns, problems, strengths, successes and people. Move from identifying target companies to asking questions about them, with discussion of each area. Before the meeting, list questions you’d like to ask in order to direct the conversation and collect information about target organizations, including the names of any relevant inside contacts Use open-ended questions to encourage your contact to share information. (10-15 minutes) Referrals Once you’ve asked questions and gathered information, you may specifically request referrals. Ideally, your contact has mentioned names. Now you can repeat some of those names and ask for an introduction. If no names were mentioned, ask your contact if he/she knows people who might have more information on the names of people inside any of your target organizations. Get specific names, titles and general contact information. Confirm how and when you’ll approach the referrals. Preferably, try to get your contact to make the preliminary connection for you! If your contact can’t think of any people for you to see, ask if you can call back in a few days to see if any have come to mind. (3-6 minutes) Trade information Whether or not you realize it, you come to this meeting with knowledge potentially useful to your contact. Throughout the conversation, tune in for opportunities to trade information you have for information your contact has. You may know about: The business or industry Other organizations Contacts with professional groups, vendors and other resources Names of potential candidates the company may want to recruit Solutions other organizations have found to problems mentioned by your contact The chance to provide useful information could come at any point in the meeting. Ask yourself “What do I know that might be useful to this contact?” If the opportunity arises, you may also offer to introduce your contact to others. (2-3 minutes) Honor time arrangements you made with your contact. If you go beyond, the contact may well be gracious, but honestly, will be less inclined to give you referrals. Arrange any follow up. Explain that you will inform your contact of what happens in the referral meetings. End the meeting with your thanks and leave at or before the agreed upon time. In the next post, I’ll share sample dialogue scripts to help you flesh out your 5-step SMART networking approach. Photo: Search Engine People Blogs

How To Create Stories That Sell You To Employers

How To Create Stories That Sell You To Employers How To Create Stories That Sell You To Employers Job Interviews / Job Transition Most of the resumes I see focus on what people do on a daily basis. The result is a boring list of duties and responsibilities thats unlikely to inspire anyone to call them. Employers want to know what you can do for them. The best way to show your value is to focus on what youve done for your current and previous employers. The impact youve made. The same is true for interviews. Employers dont want to hear about what you do every day. They want to hear about your achievements in terms of the impact youve made. Prepare for your interviews with stories that illustrate your value. Like all stories, there should be a beginning, a middle, and an end. Like most career professionals, I use the CAR formula (Challenge, Action, Result) to elicit these stories from my clients. It’s easier to put achievements into context if you think about a challenge you faced, explain what you did to overcome the challenge, and talk about the results. These stories are turned into impact statements on their resumes. You can use the same CAR formula to talk about what you’ve accomplished during job interviews. Begin with the challenge you faced (it may have been there when you were hired or come up during your tenure). Next, explain what you did to address the issue, solve the problem, improve the situation, etc. If it was a team effort, as it often is, make sure to highlight your individual contribution. Maybe you were the team leader or got buy-in from the boss or provided a specific expertise. Finish with the result. Improved employee retention, increased customer satisfaction, amount of time saved, etc. Adding metrics like $$$ made, % customer satisfaction improved, % time saved, etc. the better. Dont waste time during your job interview talking about how you spend your day. Wow the employer with the impact youve made. Brush up on best practices for phone, skype, and in-person interviews before your next job interviews by reading these 15 Tips To Help You Succeed.