Today I so instinctively take the easy way to finding information and contacts. I go to LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Job Boards, Business Directories, Google Search, and forget that the best network I have is the one made up of the people I already know. The online resources are so powerful, so compelling, and so easy…… Continue reading Your Known Network
Career Tip of the Day: Name, City, State, Zip, Phone, Email on all Correspondence
I get a ton of email. By clicking the reply button, I can reply to that email. However, some of this email is confusing as to who sent it. For example, if you use some clever name like Soccer Chief for your email name or just your first name and your email address is 5552541@me.com,…… Continue reading Career Tip of the Day: Name, City, State, Zip, Phone, Email on all Correspondence
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Skills
Skills Talent Experience Personality Knowledge Personal Goals Potential for Long-Term Success The purpose of this series of articles is to enable employers to make better hiring decisions by understanding exactly what decisions are involved in making a great hire. Coming to the right decision in making a great hire is making the correct decisions on…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Skills
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Talent Assessment
In the article I posted on September 27, 2012, I discussed talent as a quality in making a hiring decision. In talent assessment, the hiring manager is attempting to know a person’s natural abilities or aptitude and, separately, a person’s intelligence. A highly skilled house painter is the only person I would recommend to paint someone’s…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Talent Assessment
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Talent
Different companies emphasize different qualities when making a hire. Many companies have job descriptions to serve as a template for the experiences, skills, and education. There are seven decisions that go into the best hires. Does the applicant have the talent, skills, knowledge, personality, experience, potential for long-term success, and the personal goals to fit…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Talent
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personality
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personality Because of the importance of relationships within a company as well as the relationships companies have with their suppliers and their customers, personality is important in making a hiring decision. Any interviewing training program instructs applicants to stand tall, show enthusiasm and interest, and give a pleasant…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personality
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Knowledge
Knowledgeable retail buyers are gauging how much to buy based on the quantity that will sell through to the consumer and still keep the pipeline flowing with more products as well as enable the retailer to pay for the shipment with the money collected from retail sales on each order before the payment comes due to the supplier. Knowledgeable…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Knowledge
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personal Goals
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personal Goals Once a hiring manager extends an offer, an applicant may know on the spot whether to accept. On the other hand, if during the recruiting process, neither the hiring manager nor the applicant has considered the personal goals of the applicant, matters can get sticky.…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Personal Goals
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Potential for Long-Term Success
On the surface, it would appear that a person who has tremendous talent, skills, knowledge, and personality, and has everything to ensure long-term success. These factors are all very important in how well a person will do long-term. Equally important to long-term success are punctuality, attendance, conduct, trustworthiness, self-confidence, demeanor, personal appearance, loyalty, determination and flexibility, independence and…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Potential for Long-Term Success
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Experience
The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Experience I once heard a person say that they do not know how a trip will turn out until they are on the way back. Experience is a powerful teacher. Reading about performing certain tasks, attending classes on those tasks, looking at pictures of a those tasks, and discussing…… Continue reading The Seven Decisions in Making a Great Hire: Experience
Best Job Interview Questions
Why are you leaving your current job? What is your greatest achievement? Who was the best supervisor you have ever had? Who was the worst supervisor you ever had. What makes you the best person for the job? What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness? What are your long-term goals? What do you plan to do…… Continue reading Best Job Interview Questions
As the Millennial generation ages, will print media disappear?
I do not think that I have ever seen an article that did not have the word technology and the word millennial on the same page. Millennials, generally thought to be the people born between 1976 and 1984, are the stereotypes with smartphones for an appendage, news source, road map, and entertainment. I just came…… Continue reading As the Millennial generation ages, will print media disappear?
The Happiness Habit
I have heard that it is impossible to smile and be sad. I can never remember to test the idea when I am sad. Motivational speakers often emphasize the importance of thinking positive thoughts. I have heard the expression “fake until you make it.” I take this to mean act successful and happy and you…… Continue reading The Happiness Habit
Lists: Putting the Focus on Success
Some people are great lists makers. Whether shopping, going to a business meeting, planning an event, tracking their expenses, setting priorities for the day, these people are intuitively organized about the way they live their lives through lists making. Other people, myself included, are less likely to structure their lives around lists, but go along…… Continue reading Lists: Putting the Focus on Success
Should You Discuss Compensation on the First Interview? Yes!
Conventional practice and advice is that discussing compensation on the first interview is in bad form and can cost an applicant future interviews. If you are a hiring manager and make it your practice not to discuss income at all on the first interview or if you are an applicant and plan not to bring…… Continue reading Should You Discuss Compensation on the First Interview? Yes!
Formatting Your Resume for the Internet
When sending a resume in an email or uploading your resume to a website, you want your resume to look as beautiful and read with the same impact that it has when you read it directly on your computer. I work with all types of document extensions (that is, .doc, .txt, .docx, .pdf, .xls, .html,…… Continue reading Formatting Your Resume for the Internet
Hey, Catch! Interview Preparation
Have you ever had someone toss a ball your way and let you know it was inbound after the person had thrown it? If you have good reflections and a clear mind, a surprise ball toss can be easy to handle. Personally, I need to know the ball is coming and preferably have a…… Continue reading Hey, Catch! Interview Preparation
Counter Offers: The Reason That You Resigned Seldom Goes Away If You Stay.
The simple fact is that companies employ people at the convenience of the company. As soon as the company no reason to keep a person or finds a reason to let a person go, the person would be shown the door and people who are perceived as disloyal may find themselves at the head of…… Continue reading Counter Offers: The Reason That You Resigned Seldom Goes Away If You Stay.
Cocktail Napkins, Interview Questions, and Landing a Job
Cocktail Napkins, Interview Questions, and Landing a Job I have a friend who has a way of making people aware of his interest in them as friends. He always greets people with questions that allow people to talk about themselves and their families. With me, for example, he asks how I have been. He asks…… Continue reading Cocktail Napkins, Interview Questions, and Landing a Job
The Home Gym: Why Doing Things Yourself is Good for Your Self-Esteem, Your Confidence, and Your Health.
Going through a career change or any life change can bring feelings of uncertainty, inadequacy, and uselessness. You may also feel that have less energy and less interest in life in general. Home projects during these periods can be hard to start. All the feelings and loss of energy during challenging life changes can reduce…… Continue reading The Home Gym: Why Doing Things Yourself is Good for Your Self-Esteem, Your Confidence, and Your Health.
The Power of an Agenda
The Power of an Agenda for Your Job Interview During lunch with a field sales manager of a major consumer goods company, I heard again the importance of preparing an agenda before each call. He told me about a day in the field he had recently spent with the Chairman and CEO of his company. At…… Continue reading The Power of an Agenda
CloudTop – Your Desktop for the Internet
A group of MIT students in a project competition created an application that enables you to manage data across multiple sites from any computer and altered the way you and I manage and store files forever. This application is not another multiple website integration application. This is an application that will put ever file you…… Continue reading CloudTop – Your Desktop for the Internet
Red and Green Lines: Good for Links, Bad for Resumes
Have you ever noticed how some word documents are lit up with red and green lines? Those lines are the method word-processing software uses to call attention to errors in a document. To most of us, that information is common knowledge. Therefore, I am surprised when I see those lines show up so often in business letters…… Continue reading Red and Green Lines: Good for Links, Bad for Resumes
Network, Even When There is no Apparent Reward
Network, Even When There is no Apparent Reward He had been unemployed for over a year. He told me that he had not had one interview in over a year, because there was nothing worth his time. When I pressed him as to what he meant by things that were worth his time, he explained…… Continue reading Network, Even When There is no Apparent Reward
Resumes: Experience Counts but Accomplishments Count More
Resumes: Experience Counts but Accomplishments Count More. Is the purpose of your resume to get a job? Of course it is. The best way to ensure that your resume helps you get a job is to write a resume that will set you out from the pack. Quite often I receive resumes from job seekers people…… Continue reading Resumes: Experience Counts but Accomplishments Count More
Working with Recruiters: The Different Types and What They Do
Working with Recruiters: The Different Types and What They Do If you are working with recruiters, you will find it helpful to understand the relationship between the recruiter and the hiring company and the relationship between a recruiter and a potential employee. Recruiter or Placement Agency The companies that use recruiters to fill a position pay recruiters…… Continue reading Working with Recruiters: The Different Types and What They Do
Collaborate: The Art of We – Dan Sanker – Google Books
Book recommendation Author: Dan Sanker “The 21st Century’s counterpart to Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: Dan Sanker’s Collaborate: The Art of We, gives a new generation of pioneering business enthusiasts a practical guide to capture tomorrow’s business opportunities.” Online Review
A Word About Disney
I have spent so much time in business and talking to people about business that I have lost the feeling of wonder about what successful companies really do. Companies that stay in business for decades do wonderful things and make wonderful products. I could pick many companies as examples and never have to mention a…… Continue reading A Word About Disney
Multitasking? Give Me a Break!
The greatest hazard in the multitasking world today is the risk of not getting to the the actual tasks you have set for yourself. Computers Invite Us to Multitask. I have always had multiple tools on my desktop. At one time my desktop was covered with a legal pad, a canister of pens, reference books,…… Continue reading Multitasking? Give Me a Break!
Counter Offers: The Stress of Trying to Leave a Company
Counter Offers: The Stress of Trying to Leave a Company There is some interesting history on this article. The first day that I posted it, I copied it from a database template, and pasted the article into this website. The content of that template somehow brought down the entire the website. I could still see the back-end of the…… Continue reading Counter Offers: The Stress of Trying to Leave a Company
Are you a card collector?
The first time I heard the expression “be a card collector,” I was not certain what the person meant. Collecting cards to follow sports figures or to trade in games had always been my idea of card collecting. What I learned from a master at networking was that collecting business cards was part of the…… Continue reading Are you a card collector?
Jay Wren, Success!
Interview Tips: the Chemistry of the Job Interview
For some hiring managers, the chemistry of the job interview influences hiring decisions as skills. Hiring decisions have so much to do with chemistry that personal chemistry might be the biggest element in the interview process. Think about it. The interviewer has read your resume. This person must have some reason to believe that you…… Continue reading Interview Tips: the Chemistry of the Job Interview
6 Steps to Making a Great Job Interview Impression
Great Job Interview Impression Fine tuning your ability to make a great job interview impression will make you more competitive against other applicants. Dress the part. If you are going to meet people for the first, dress appropriately. If you are going to a swimming party, take a bathing suit. If you are going to…… Continue reading 6 Steps to Making a Great Job Interview Impression
Resumes Employers Will Want to Read
Resumes Employers Will Want to Read: Working through stacks of resumes, hiring managers and recruiters spend just seconds deciding whether to save you resume or delete it. Job seekers must know how to write resumes employers will want to read. I based the following information on feedback I have received from hiring managers, staffing managers, and other…… Continue reading Resumes Employers Will Want to Read
Jay Wren: the CPG Industry Recruiter
What is the consumer packaged goods industry? I do get ask that question from time to time. The consumer-packaged goods industry is comprised of those companies that manufacture, advertise, and distribute products that are in a package and readily consumable. Examples of consumer-packaged goods are canned soup, laundry soap, beverages, paper towels, candy, and so forth. The…… Continue reading Jay Wren: the CPG Industry Recruiter