For hiring managers, the chemistry of the job interview influences hiring decisions as the much as the skills of the job applicant. Think about it. The interviewer has read your resume. Before the applicant arrives, the hiring manager has seen the applicants qualifications.
The People are the Company’s Greatest Assets
Knowledgeable, well-trained people are a company’s greatest asset. There is no game without the players. There are no goods or services without the people to create and deliver them. The value of a company increases as the result of the increase in the quality of the performance of its people. New products come from the imagination and creation of the people. Hire the best people to match the requirements of the job. Train them to do the best job possible. Delegate to them the responsibility to deliver your goods and services. Hold them accountable for their performance. But never, never get in their way.
Certainly a company must start with an idea. A company must have raw materials and finances. However, the best people can create the idea as the basis for the company. The best people can be resourceful enough to find and get the raw materials and finances. Therefore, knowledgeable, well-trained people are a company’s greatest asset.
Jay Wren
Great People
The Challenging Work of Selecting Great People
As a recruiter who worked with wonderful human resources people and hiring managers, I know the challenges people face in making great hires. Over the years, I built a check-off list of traits I considered when making referrals. Using this list, I increased my placement to referral rate. Furthermore, I increased the long-term success of the people my clients hired.
Choose Happiness
Happiness is easy when everything is going our way. Some people seem happy all the time. How can we be happy even when life is challenging?
Life Challenges
Life’s challenges create pressure. I cannot always eliminate these challenges, but I can be smart about how I respond to them.
Action
I feel stressed when I put things off.
To overcome procrastination, I simply agree to do one small thing. A common example is to go for a walk, I lace up my shoes. To do odd jobs around the house, I lay out my tools. Often, this one thing sets in motion my completing small tasks. To reduce stress, I break projects down into multiple, simple steps.
When I am stuck with writing an article, for example, I write a statement. From there I write the information to explain the statement. I might write one paragraph. I save what I have written as a draft. During the day, I may stop and leave my work. However, by coming back with a fresh mind and additional information through the day, I complete the article.
Write Things Down
When something is bothering me, I can write it down. Writing takes the sting out of stress. Further writing helps me process anxiety. Moreover, further writing often leads to solutions to solving problems that bother me.
From there, I have a plan of action that gives me the confidence to be more productive. I have a sense of accomplishment. I feel less stressed.
Eat Healthy Food First
When hunger makes me anxious between meals, a snack cuts my anxiety until mealtime.
Sugar snacks make me hungrier. The sugar demands insulin to burn the sugar. Somewhere in the lack of balance between sugar and insulin, I feel anxious.
Therefore, I try to keep more satisfying snacks handy. Cheese, nuts, peanut butter are calorically dense, but reduce cravings and quiet the anxious voices in my head.
Take Breaks
Being tired clutters my mind. I become less productive. My cluttered mind focuses on problems.
For me, a power nap or a walk help me recover from the fatigue of working on most projects. Simply taking a walk reduces my anxiety.
To remind myself to move each hour, I have notifications on my calendar to leave my desk and move around.
I Take Breaks and Sleep at Night
Not only do I take breaks. I try to get seven hours of sleep. Allowing my brain to rest enables me to make better decisions. Better decisions increase success and cut stress.
Lack of rest is one of the steps to burnout. We reach a point where overdoing our job cripples us in ways that we cannot perform at work.
Keep It Real
It is so easy for me to want to control national or international events. Thinking that I can control these things is completely fruitless and painfully stressful.
People in forums say things that annoy me. Correcting them is pointless. I cannot police the Internet!
Likewise, I can easily believe that I can change other people. There are things that I can do that affect how other people react. However, just changing my own behavior is not always easy. Believing that I can change other people is often impractical.
Frustration over the things I cannot change creates stress. I try to keep it real about the things that I can change and not change.
Talk with Friends
Just having friends helps me beat stress. Talking to friends gets me out of my own head and into the present moment. Furthermore, in talking with friends, I get practical information on dealing with life’s challenges, thereby increasing success and stress reduction.
Stress Reduction
Reducing stress from life’s challenges clears our mind and increases our long-term success. The steps to stress reduction include steps to increase our health.
Worry Not
Worrying is Not Planning. When I am planning, I am actively engaged in the present moment. I am acting on things that I will do in the future. When I am worrying, I am just sticking pins in my brain with the idea that I am somehow seeking a solution.
Do Something to Eliminate Fear
If you want to change the subject in your head, do something. Call someone. Read anything: a book, a website, a magazine, whatever changes your thinking. Walk around the block. Turn on the television. Put on some music. Just do something.
Freedom from Fear
Emotional Intelligence: Learning how to manage emotions is part of growing up. However, becoming aware that our feelings are making us dumber is not always easy. How do successful people deal with emotions to make better decisions?
Setbacks and Resilience
Successful people have setbacks. Everyone does. But successful people bounce back. They have resilience.
~ www.jaywren.com
How is it that some people can overcome setbacks while other people can’t? Are there skills for resilience that everyone can learn?
Five Obstacles to Resilience
- Fear
- Pride
- Confusion
- Procrastination
- Resentments
Here are ways to overcome those five obstacles.
Fear
When we have setbacks in threatening circumstances, it is natural to experience fear.
Fear can shut us down mentally and block our willingness to bounce back.
Dealing with fear starts with an understanding that fear is in our head. We scare ourselves with the way we think.
If you are continually struggling with fear, find knowledgeable, positive mentors who can help you make great decisions and build your confidence to act on your setbacks.
Pride
Pride is a healthy view of our accomplishments. We find satisfaction in our achievements and the people with whom we associate. Pride gives people confidence.
Other the other hand, when pride covers our insecurities, it prevents us seeing our role in our problems.
To recover, we don’t have to swallow our pride. We don’t have to be ashamed or embarrassed for our mistakes. We just need to recognize our role in our setbacks and work to correct those mistakes.
Confusion
To recover from setbacks, we need to understand what has happened to us and what we need to do to bounce back.
Confusion is especially common when the things we were doing have stopped working. Try as we may to use old skills, they fail us. We can’t bounce back until we recognize the problem and develop new skills and resources to become resilient.
Procrastination
Ugh. Procrastination is an annoying reluctance to do the things that will correct our problems.
The way to overcome procrastination is to break the process to recovery into small, individual steps. Just do at least one small thing. Doing one small thing has two potentially positive effects on recovery. A single step each day adds up as we work toward solving our problems. Furthermore, doing just one step often leads to doing all the steps to correct a problem and put the work behind us.
Resentments
Resilience is not about getting even with people who have harmed us. It’s about getting ourselves back on track.
Holding resentments or grudges hold us back from moving on with our lives. They are obstacles to resilience.
Grudges are simply a way to feel superior to people who have harmed us. We ruminate on how we can set them straight. Furthermore, resentments can become destructive obsessions.
The stress of a grudge not only blocks us mentally, it damages us physically. The loss of energy from holding grudges makes it harder from us to work on solutions. Long-term stress from grudges creates mental and emotional problems.
Letting go of grudges and focusing on rebuilding relationships is a powerful way to bounce back from setbacks. These relationships increase our effectiveness and empower us with people who support us.
Poise and Confidence
Poise is not always automatic. Nearly everyone feels uncertain and lacks poise from time-to-time. How do successful people restore their confidence and maintain their poise in challenging situations?