Restless At Work? LinkedIn Can Guess What You"ll Do Next

A generation ago, if you felt restless in your job and weren’t sure what to do next, you could ask your boss or friends for advice — or you could visit the local fortune-teller. Now however, an intriguing new LinkedIn tool provides some pretty good guesses about what you’ll do next.

LinkedIn’s data-visualization team has created a giant sphere that’s speckled with nearly 300 types of jobs, ranging from actors to firefighters, insurance agents and Oracle database administrators. Click on any one of those categories — and an animated version of connect-the-dots will spring forth, showing you the most common career moves of people in those fields. This link will let you test the system yourself.

To create these forecasts, LinkedIn research consultant Sohan Murthy explained in a blog post, the company’s data scientists culled through the career histories of more than 300 million people with LinkedIn profiles. Researchers focused on cases where people switched to at least a slightly different category, instead of simply moving up the ladder in their chosen specialty. LinkedIn’s analysts also discarded cases involving people who had switched careers multiple times, or whose current careers straddle multiple categories.

Many of the career paths are exactly what you’d expect. Financial consultants tend to become accountants and data analysts. Psychologists end up as social workers or university professors. And when today’s job becomes unbearable,  just about everybody is willing to give sales a try.

But in an intriguing number of cases, LinkedIn’s mapping system unearthed job hops that are far from obvious. Among them:

• Soldiers and military officers, when they transition to civilian life, may pick new jobs as diverse as corporate strategists, business owners or police officers.


• Geologists sometimes end up as information-technology support specialists or environmental specialists.


• Pharmacists cross over to the other side of the counter and become medical representatives.


• People who start out as political staffers can end up as everything from lawyers and judges to public-relations offices.

Another oddity: fields that offer very little mobility. As LinkedIn’s Murthy points out, people who become web developers, paralegals or physicians have hardly any common career options beyond staying in their current field. Bad news? Not necessarily.

In Murthy’s words, “this is a classic sign of specialization,” and that’s nothing to weep about. If demand for these skills stays strong, and the work is enjoyable, people in such aspects of law, tech and health care may never feel the urge to switch.

via Restless At Work? LinkedIn Can Guess What You’ll Do Next.

Restless At Work? LinkedIn Can Guess What You"ll Do Next

Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don"t get hired

Top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

Technology companies blame the pool of job applicants for the severe shortage of blacks and Hispanics in Silicon Valley.

But these findings show that claim “does not hold water,” said Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics and urban policy at The New School in New York.

“What do dominant groups say? ‘We tried, we searched but there was nobody qualified.’ If you look at the empirical evidence, that is just not the case,” he said.

As technology becomes a major engine of economic growth in the U.S. economy, tech companies are under growing pressure to diversify their workforces, which are predominantly white, Asian and male. Leaving African Americans and Hispanics out of that growth increases the divide between haves and have-nots. And the technology industry risks losing touch with the diverse nation — and world — that forms its customer base.

On average, just 2% of technology workers at seven Silicon Valley companies that have released staffing numbers are black; 3% are Hispanic.

But last year, 4.5% of all new recipients of bachelor’s degrees in computer science or computer engineering from prestigious research universities were African American, and 6.5% were Hispanic, according to data from the Computing Research Association.

The USA TODAY analysis was based on the association’s annual Taulbee Survey, which includes 179 U.S. and Canadian universities that offer doctorates in computer science and computer engineering.

“They’re reporting 2% and 3%, and we’re looking at graduation numbers (for African Americans and Hispanics) that are maybe twice that,” said Stuart Zweben, professor of computer science and engineering at The Ohio State University in Columbus.

“Why are they not getting more of a share of at least the doctoral-granting institutions?” said Zweben, who co-authored the 2013 Taulbee Survey report.

USA TODAY

An even larger gulf emerges between Silicon Valley and graduates of all U.S. colleges and universities. A survey by the National Center for Education Statistics showed that blacks and Hispanics each made up about 9% of all 2012 computer science graduates.

Nationally, blacks make up 12% of the U.S. workforce and Hispanics 16%.

Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple and Yahoo declined to comment on the disparity between graduation rates and their hiring rates.

LinkedIn issued a statement that it was working with organizations to “address the need for greater diversity to help LinkedIn and the tech industry as a whole.”

Google said on its diversity blog in May that it has “been working with historically black colleges and universities to elevate coursework and attendance in computer science.”

USA TODAY

In his blog post on diversity, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook cited improving education as “one of the best ways in which Apple can have a meaningful impact on society. We recently pledged $100 million to President Obama’s ConnectED initiative to bring cutting-edge technologies to economically disadvantaged schools.”

All of the companies have insisted they are hiring all of the qualified black and Hispanic tech workers they can find.

In an interview earlier this year, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said the key to getting more women and minorities into the technology field had to start with improvements to education.

Tech companies lag in hiring minorities

Only half of black and Hispanic graduates with computer science degrees from leading universities are being hired by major technology companies. Percentages of minority staff at seven major companies and minorities graduating with CS degrees from major universities*:

Wage disparity among high-tech workers

Minority tech workers are paid less than their white coworkers, with Hispanic women at the bottom of the pay scale, according to a new study.

“We are not going to fix the numbers for under-representation in technology or any industry until we fix our education system,” she said.

Others say tech giants simply don’t see the programmers right in front of them.

Janice Cuny directs the Computer Education program at the National Science Foundation. She says black and Hispanic computer science graduates are invisible to these companies.

“People used to say that there were no women in major orchestras because women didn’t like classical music. Then in the 1970s they changed the way people auditioned so it was blind, the listeners couldn’t see the players auditioning. Now the numbers are much more representative,” she said.

The same thing happens in the tech world, said Cuny. “There are these subtle biases that make you think that some person is not what you’re looking for, even when they are.”

USA TODAY

One of the key problems: There are elite computer science departments that graduate larger numbers of African-American and Hispanic students, but they are not the ones where leading companies recruit employees. Stanford, UC-Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA and MIT are among the most popular for recruiting by tech companies, according to research by Wired magazine.

“That is the major disconnect,” said Juan Gilbert, a professor of computer and information science at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

“The premise that if you want diversity, you have to sacrifice quality, is false,” he said. His department currently has 25 African-American Ph.D. candidates. Rice University in Houston has a large number of Hispanic students.

“These are very strong programs, top-ranked places that have excellent reputations,” he said. “Intel has been hiring from my lab, and they say our students hit it out of the ballpark.”

Justin Edmund says he was fortunate to attend Carnegie Mellon. Today he’s the seventh employee at Pinterest and one of the top designers at the San Francisco start-up valued at $5 billion.

He’s also one of the few African Americans in his company.

“There’s a lot of things that can be done to fix the problem, but a lot of them are things that Silicon Valley and technology companies don’t do,” Edmund said. “If you go to the same prestigious universities every single time and every single year to recruit people … then you are going to get the same people over and over again.”

Contributing: Paul Overberg

via Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don’t get hired.

Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don"t get hired

YouTube offering bonuses to keep talent away from rivals, says WSJ

Google is throwing money at its YouTube stars to keep them away from a site that hasn’t even launched yet, according to the WSJ. Vessel, created by Hulu exec Jason Kilar, has offered some YouTube artists exclusive and lucrative deals to attract attention to its launch later this year. Other sites like Facebook and Crackle have also reportedly been poaching YouTube stars. The “broadcast yourself” site leans on talent like style coach Michelle Phan and comedian Colleen Ballinger (as Miranda Sings, above) to keep loyal channels fans engaged. But Phan, who had an early look at Vessel, called it “stunning,” and others have said that they were offered serious money for exclusive deals. Artists that stay loyal are making out better, though — on top of bonuses, YouTube has been offering rich funding deals to help select stars create new channels.

via YouTube offering bonuses to keep talent away from rivals, says WSJ.

YouTube offering bonuses to keep talent away from rivals, says WSJ

How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability

In a previous Forbes post, we considered the disconcerting reality that even in the midst of an unemployment crisis, employers across industries are still unable to find the talent profiles they need. How is it possible that even highly educated candidates are unable to find skilled work when millions of open positions go unfilled? Evidence indicates that this talent gap is not due to the absence of technical skills, as one might expect, but rather to the absence of “soft skills,” or what we’ll call 21st century skills, in prospective candidates. These primarily refer to interpersonal and general analytic abilities like teamwork, empathy, leadership, negotiation, adaptability, and problem solving.

As we discussed, this is useful information for students and educators, but lessons from this research could be of particular benefit to employers, as well. The problem is that 21^st century skills are very difficult to assess with any kind of rigor, especially before one can evaluate a candidate on the job. Can a candidate think innovatively? Collaborate with other team members? Assimilate feedback and coaching? Will the candidate be adaptable to new environments and successfully integrate with teams? It is very difficult to reduce these questions to discrete qualifications and quantifiable metrics in the same way we assess recognized degrees and numerical grades.

Certainly some approaches exist. For example, businesses have used “type”-based personality tests for decades in attempts to measure the soft skills of prospective candidates, assuming that certain personality types would correlate with high performance. One example is the Jung Typology Profiler for Workplace™ (JPTW), which purports to measure qualities such as “Power” (leadership potential), “Assurance,” “Visionary,” “Rationality,” and so forth.

Despite the promise of measuring key skills, the reality is that personality tests have serious methodological flaws and lack the statistical reliability to predict performance among prospective employees. For example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a closely-related profiler to the JPTW that also has its origins in Jungian typology from the early 20th century. The makers of the MBTI clearly state in their ethical guidelines that “It is unethical, and in many cases illegal, to require job applicants to take the Indicator if the results will be used to screen out applicants.” Because of their shared methodological limitations, the same restrictions should apply to the JPTW.

It’s clear that we need 21^st century methods to assess 21^st century skills. Unfortunately, that seemingly simple idea proves to be much trickier in practice than it is in theory.

Tools for talent development do not work for pre-employment screening

Part of the problem is that many companies are using the wrong tools for the job.   There is a fundamental difference between tools intended to develop existing teams and tools used for pre-employment selection.

For developing existing teams, there is evidence that “type”-based  personality tests can help managers better develop and deploy the talent they have already hired. For example, Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 is a tool that helps individuals understand and describe their own talents, and is commonly used by managers to understand and capitalize on the strengths of those they hire. More importantly, it is methodologically sound, and its reliability and validity are backed up by clear evidence.

For example, Facebook uses StrengthsFinder in a clever way to deploy talent efficiently. Regardless of the job openings they have available, Facebook simply hires the smartest people it can find, then uses StrengthsFinder results to understand their talents and create a job tailored to the candidate.

One might naturally assume that the same type of test that helps identify and develop strengths in an existing team could also be used to assess suitable candidates for entry into that team. In the words of Gallup, “Absolutely not… A development-oriented assessment such as StrengthsFinder is markedly different from selection tools because its purpose is not to assess whether an individual is suited for a particular job or role. Instead, it aims to provide talent insights for developing strengths within roles.”

Personality tests cannot be used for the same purpose as pre-employment selection tools because they simply can’t perform the key function: predicting employee performance. For example, two people who have the same set of innate strengths (according to a personality test) could have widely varying job performance. And of course, two people with a completely different set of strengths could do the same job equally well.

Pre-employment selection tools can predict employee performance on the job

Many pre-employment selection tools succeed at predicting performance because they have a completely different design than talent development tools like personality tests. Instead of seeking general traits and preferences, selection tools are tailored to a particular job in a particular organization, and are statistically calibrated to provide reliable predictive results (i.e., candidates who score highly on these tests also tend to perform well after they’re hired). In addition to the StrengthsFinder development tool, Gallup also offers these pre-employment selection tools, which include analytic services to confirm the validity and predictive value of the measures for candidate screening.

Pairin, Inc. is another organization that seeks to combine the personality test approach with specialized testing (for specific jobs, values, culture, etc.) as part of a pre-employment selection system. Using the Job Pairin System, employers can assess the presence of around 100 coachable/changeable behaviors such as emotional intelligence, leadership, attraction of followers, and even character.

A new spin on the behavioral interview

While services from Gallup and Pairin provide strong, evidence-based methods, the debate on using metrics to assess 21^st century skills will certainly continue. For good or bad, it is unlikely that the traditional way to measure 21^st century skills – the behavioral interview – will be unseated anytime soon. (Behavioral interviews are those that include situational questions like “Tell me about a time when you worked effectively under pressure.”)

Certainly, behavioral interviewing has problems of its own – for example, canned and otherwise disingenuous responses are all too common. While most companies still use a behavioral interviewing approach, those with top hiring practices are able to mitigate these issues. First and most importantly: skilled interviewers are often able to weed out rote responses by probing on the details of the situation discussed. This can help get the candidate “off script” and thus generate better insights about their true personality.

The behavioral questions themselves can also be written in a way that yields better insights. For example, Teach for America includes tough questions like “What would cause you to want to dropout of Teach For America if you were chosen?” Questions like these, for which the “obvious” answers might not be the best, could evoke a wider spread between canned responses and those that show more nuance and self-awareness.

As another example of innovation, Google also uses behavioral interviews, but structures them in a way that allows HR to perform analytics and prove that certain responses reliably predict employee performance.

Beyond the interview

Whatever method companies use to assess 21^st century skills in prospective employees, it’s important that they reflect on the key principles behind the assessment approaches. Findings from research on 21^st century skills provide an extremely valuable lens through which companies can view all interactions with candidates. Consider: What can you teach a new hire on the job, and what can you not teach? With information now abundantly available to us, almost anyone can learn basic Photoshop skills, for example, via online seminars. But what about skills like adaptability and empathy – can they be taught on the job?

via How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability – Forbes.

How To Hire Like Google And Facebook: Evaluating Candidates Beyond Their Technical Ability

2015 technology predictions for CIOs

As we approach 2015, we asked a few Enterpriser IT executives what they see on the near horizon: trends, watch-outs, and best practices that will make their lives better – and more interesting – in the coming months. Here’s what they had to say:

1. Mobile exploits will rise sharply

“I think whether it’s next year or next week, we are due a major round of weaknesses and security breaches in the mobile space. At the moment, from what I’ve seen in the past and the development cycles of these things, the opportunity for the bad guys to create havoc in the mobile space has barely started.” – Cliff Tamplin, Consultant and Former Vice President of Technology Support & Risk Management, Hyatt Hotels Corporation

2. Docker will live up to the hype

“Docker will largely avoid the ‘trough of disillusionment’ and continue its growth as a cloud-enabling technology.” – Lee Congdon, CIO, Red Hat

3. SaaS and cloud growth will continue to spiral upward

“I see a continued migration to SaaS and cloud technologies that were previously considered premise-only concepts. I think that prices for cloud technologies will continue to drop as well. Amazon Web Services will see increased competition from Google and Microsoft, which will cause prices to drop, and price is one of the last barriers for traditional colocation-focused companies. – Aaron Stibel, Executive Vice President of Technology, Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp

4. Execs will schedule more time for work (not meetings)

“In the spirit of leading by example, one thing I plan to do in 2015 is leave my schedule open for at least 50 percent of the time. I’ve noticed that even if a meeting scheduled for an hour is over in 30 minutes, it will still stretch to take all of the hour. I think that’s waste, because most of these things can be done by email. Leaving my schedule open will allow people to walk into my office, talk to me, tell me what they are thinking, share their ideas, and have productive conversations. I plan to make it a point to leave my door open when my schedule is open, too, to create an environment where you can stop by and talk about ideas.” – Venki Rao, CIO, GE Digital Energy

5. Streaming video chips away at traditional TV

“Video streaming over the Internet will continue to make gains against the more traditional television business model in the United States.” – Lee Congdon, CIO, Red Hat

6. Higher digitization will move into every corner of life

“Think screens and sensors on mobile devices and on wearables, so the sensors in your clothes are starting to report into your Fitbit or whatever you own. This will drive interest around personal analytics and allow you to start drawing conclusions about the effects of an extra hour of sleep on your ability to keep off weight, and so on. I’m curious whether this will be a slow progression or whether it’s going to feel so far away and then suddenly cross over a tipping point. Sensors and beacons in retail are still far from common adoption, for example, but you have certain retailers trying things out, and I know there’s much more to come in that area.” –  Peter Buonora, Enterprise Architect, BJ’s Wholesale Club

7. Goodbye laptops, hello mobile devices

“The long-term decline of the laptop computer will continue as more applications move to the cloud and mobile devices.” – Lee Congdon, CIO, Red Hat

8. The customer will be king (even in IT)

“One thing I see becoming prevalent in leadership is to make customer service everyone’s job. In the past you could say we have a customer service team, we have a marketing team, we have a commercial team, and it’s their job. Right now, it’s everybody’s job. So no matter who does what, the customer comes first.  And your job is to service your customers.” – Venki Rao, CIO, GE Digital Energy

9. Cross-platform development will become the norm

“I can’t say I think the web per se is going to go away, but I would see a lot more cross-platform development, where all the things blend together. There are many new development tools out there, including some that enable you to develop once and deploy across iOS, Android, NativeWeb, everything else. So this blurring of the interface will continue to run the gamut.” – Cliff Tamplin, Consultant and Former Vice President of Technology Support & Risk Management, Hyatt Hotels Corporation

via 2015 technology predictions for CIOs | The Enterprisers Project.

2015 technology predictions for CIOs

How to Tell if Your Company Has a Creative Culture

“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation,” Peter Drucker once said. Innovation generates new products and business models, and marketing lets the world know about those innovations. Both disciplines are often seen as the fruit of creativity. But when it comes to building the creative culture needed to execute on marketing and innovation properly, many leaders find themselves puzzled at how to build a creative culture.

Indeed, even defining what a creative culture looks like can be challenging. Both “creativity” and “culture” are words with myriad connotations, which makes them hard to fully understand and even harder to implement. Faced with this dilemma, many people approach understanding culture the way Justice Potter Stewart approached understanding pornography – they’ll claim to know it when they see it.

But such an approach is dangerous. It’s easy to look at companies renowned for their creative culture and attempt to emulate what they’re doing, but without understanding the dynamics of culture, we may only mimic its surface-level elements and fail to make lasting cultural change. For example, it’s easy to look at tech companies and notice foosball tables or beer carts and lots of free food. But such objects are only part of the picture.

In the 1980s, psychologist Edgar Schein of the Sloan School of Management developed a model for understanding and analyzing organizational culture. Schein divided an organization’s culture into three distinct levels: artifacts, values, and assumptions.

Artifacts are the overt and obvious elements of an organization. They’re typically the things even an outsider can see, such as furniture and office layout, dress norms, inside jokes, and mantras. Yes, foosball and free food are also artifacts. Artifacts can be easy to observe but sometimes difficult to understand, especially if your analysis of a culture never goes any deeper. The Palo Alto office of IDEO famously has an airplane wing jutting out from one wall, a surprising and puzzling artifact if one doesn’t understand IDEO’s culture of playful experimentation and free expression.

Espoused values are the company’s declared set of values and norms. Values affect how members interact and represent the organization. Most often, values are reinforced in public declarations, like the aptly named list of core values, but also in the common phrases and norms individuals repeat often. Herb Kelleher was famous for responding to a variety of proposals from Southwest colleagues with the phrase “low cost airline,” reaffirming the espoused value of affordability.

Shared basic assumptions are the bedrock of organizational culture. They are the beliefs and behaviors so deeply embedded that they can sometimes go unnoticed. But basic assumptions are the essence of culture, and the plumb line that espoused values and artifacts square themselves against. Zappos call center employees share a strong belief that providing outstanding service will result in loyal customers, so much so that employees send potential customers to other retailers if Zappos doesn’t have the item in stock. Basic assumptions manifest themselves in a variety of ways. Sometimes they’re reflected in the espoused values and in artifacts, sometimes not. But when basic organizational assumptions don’t align with espoused values, trouble arises. Enron produced a 64-page manual outlining the company’s mission and espousing its core values, but judging by their very “creative” accounting practices, it’s questionable if the executives at the top had ever read it.

It’s easy to examine quirky artifacts and mistake them for basic assumptions. There is nothing magical about a free food program, but a free food program in a culture with basic assumptions about the value of collaboration and sharing can enhance the creative output of the entire organization by providing meals over which to share ideas. Similarly, it’s one thing for a company’s leadership to espouse the value of “out of the box thinking,” but if your managers have trouble recognizing unconventional, great ideas because of their basic assumptions about the need for feasibility, for instance, then they won’t give leadership what they’re asking for.

Basic assumptions are the hardest to see, but it’s the basic assumptions of an organization’s culture that produce a real affect on the creativity of its members. Creative organizations have basic assumptions about creativity being a process, rather than a eureka moment, or that not all conflict needs to be resolved because sometimes it can yield more innovative thinking. They share beliefs that creativity thrives under constraints, or that the best work is done using constantly evolving teams. Sharing ideas openly, allowing for limited risk taking, and celebrating failures as learning opportunities are all basic beliefs of creative organizations.

You may recognize a creative culture when you see it, but you won’t truly understand it until you dig below the surface.

via How to Tell if Your Company Has a Creative Culture.

How to Tell if Your Company Has a Creative Culture

Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC]

Some interview mistakes are common sense, but some mistakes aren’t always obvious.

Treat this Independence University infographic as a refreshing recap of the interview essentials, such as: not lying during an interview, showing enthusiasm for the job you’re interviewing for, and don’t fumble your answers.

I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life, but hey, you should consider this advice.

Takeaways:

• Stay alert, make sure your posture is good and that you keep eye contact with the interviewer.


• Tempting as it may be to wear your new gloss-white tracksuit, don’t turn up to your interview casual. You don’t need to go overboard, but dress to impress. Smart casual wins everything forever.


• Talk the right amount is vital. You want to convey you’re able to work with the interviewer, so it’s the delicate balance of speaking just the right amount.


• Keep enthusiastic and positive about the job.


• Don’t use your phone in an interview. Ever.

via Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC].

Avoid These Top 10 Job Interview Mistakes [INFOGRAPHIC]

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter

When applying for a new job the devil can certainly be in the detail. Two simple words can make a world of difference and they are “thank you”. We all want to be thanked for the effort we put in to our jobs and that goes for any interviewer, be they HR or hiring managers. Be sure to follow up your cover letter that got you the interview with a post-interview thank you note that will put you firmly back on the map for the employer.

Why send it?

Sincere statements like “Thank you for meeting me today”, “I appreciated meeting you”, “I very much look forward to speaking to you later today” should perk up any hiring manager’s mood after another day of sifting the wheat from the chaff. The idea is to stand out from other candidates and leave a favorable impression with the other person by going the extra mile.

The follow up letter is more than only saying thank you, it also allows you to reiterate the points you made in the meeting and to bring up any new points that you forgot to put across. Examples of this could be “great to see that we both like ice hockey, I should have mentioned that I did play semi-professionally back in the 90’s”.

Make the decision today to follow up your meetings with a thank you note sent straight to the interviewer. The note says a lot about you, that you care about others and not just about this particular job. It will also indicate that you will make a great team player willing to go out of your way for others.

How to send it?

Does the not have to be sent by post? Not at all, a phone call or an email will do just as well. Although traditionalists would argue that nothing beats a hand written letter, especially if you want to stand out from the crowd. In any event, what’s important is that you express your appreciation and leave a lasting good impression.

If you really like the idea of thank you notes, you could even send one to the employers that didn’t ask you to interview. Again, you will get noticed and although you won’t be put back in the running for that position, you will be at the forefront of that employer’s mind for the next one.

Sample follow up cover letter:

Dear Employer,

Thank you so much for taking the time to see me today. It was a pleasure discussing our mutual passion for philately and ornithology. I enjoyed meeting you and going through your job opening and to have the chance to state the reasons I am convinced I would be an ideal fit.

The team seems like a lovely bunch of people, the office is very conveniently located and I can really see myself having a long career with your company. Looking forward to hearing from you soon and hopefully another meeting in the near future. Thank you once again.

Kind Regards,

Applicant

Conclusion

Make it a rule to follow up your interviews with another cover letter, including the magic words “thank you” and you will be surprised how people will react positively. Now go on and Make Dale Carnegie himself proud by unleashing the power of good manners on your job search!

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter.

Why You Should Always Send a Follow Up Cover Letter

How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions

Interviews can be stressful, but if you’ve done your research, prepared your answers, the next thing is to create a list of questions you will ask during the interview. Remember, the interview really should be a mutual exchange of information, not an interrogation.

When you ask questions is demonstrates your interest in the company and the position. It also shows you have given careful thought to what the job will entail and whether the company will be a good match. Sending these impressions to the employer can work in your favor. Remember, most employers aren’t hiring “butts in seats.” They want the people they hire to perform, and hopefully better than expected.

There are four different categories of questions listed depending on where you are in the interview process and what information you want to gather during your discussion.

Basic Questions

These questions are good to ask during the pre-screening phone interview or in the early stages of the interviewing process. Gathering the answers early will allow you to ask better follow-up questions later on. They will also provide you with a clearer idea of the skills you will want to emphasize.

• What do you see ahead for your company in the next five years?


• What do you consider to be your company’s most important assets?


• How do you rate your competition?


• Could you describe a typical day or week in this position? Or Could you describe the typical client or customer I would be dealing with?


• What are the most important elements of this job?


• Why is this position available?


• What did the last person in this position go onto do — and what were they like?


• How is job performance evaluated, and how often does it occur?


• What are the three main factors you will be using to determine the right person for this job?


• What was it about my qualifications that most appealed to you?

Job-Related Questions

These questions allow you to dig deeper into the job requirements and expectations and are best asked of your future manager.

• What goals do you expect the person who takes this job to achieve during their first 30, 60, and 90 days?


• Could you tell me about the way the job has been performed in the past? And, what improvements you’d like to see happen?


• How does “X” get done here? (Where “X” is a key element of the job)


• What types of skills do you NOT already have on-board that you’re looking to fill with a new hire?


• If I was starting in this position today, what would you advise me to learn first and do first?

Cultural Fit Questions

Finding the right cultural fit is important to you AND the employer. There are many elements to cultural fit: management style, processes and procedures, ethics/values, communication styles, levels of trust and empowerment are just a few. Listen carefully and without bias as you ask these questions. Whenever possible, ask relevant follow-up questions to gain further insight or clarification.

• What do you like best about working here?


• What type of work do you delegate to your staff?


• The company may have a formal recognition program; however, what type of recognition have you recently given to one of your staff?


• Has anyone on your staff been promoted over the last couple of years? If so, what was the reason why this person was promoted?


• What would be the three things that your peers would say you do extremely well?


• What opportunities do you make available for professional development and training?


• What do employees do in their spare time?


• Does the company welcome celebrating special occasions? What was the last occasion your department celebrated?

Trial Close

Sometimes it is a good idea to see if you’ve left the interviewer with questions or issues unaddressed. A “trial close” can be a way for you to see what the interviewer is feeling.

• Are there any reservations you have about my fit for the position that I could try to address?


• This job sounds like something I’d really like to do — is there a fit here?


• Now that we’ve talked about my qualifications and the job, do you have any concerns about my being successful in this position?

Final Questions

There are no exceptions. You MUST know the answers to these questions. It allows you to plan how and when you follow-up.

• What is the next step in this process?


• What is your time line for getting back to candidates about the next steps?

Exuding confidence and interest in the job are two of the most important assets you can possess! Go get the next interview!

via How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions.

How to Stand Out During the Interview: Use These 25 Questions

7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You

To secure that dream job, you have to think like the person making the final decision. What is going through the manager’s head when they select candidates? This is a list containing the 7 most common reasons people get hired. Use it wisely now and do let me know if you have any questions on any of the reasons.

1. A great resume

Sometimes an average candidate can be hired thanks to a brilliant resume. Your resume is your first impression and you only get one shot at this. Pick a template relevant to your industry, look at other people’s resumes, have them look at yours, get help from experts etc before you send anything out. Remember that your resume has to be updated consistently and it is a living document.

2. Your online personal brand

Personal branding is my personal favorite. Social media and networking has quickly become the preferred method of communication, and you will be found online by your potential new employer. By tailoring what information is available, you can turn social media into a positive when looking for a new job.

Make sure your public profiles are employee friendly and up to date. Establish yourself as an authority online by either starting a blog, moderating a forum or jut being active in a Linkedin group for instance. Get recommendations on your prolife and these will serve as the old school resume references. Social media and online branding will take you a fair bit of time and effort but you don’t really have a choice so my best advice is to embrace it.

3. The right skills and experience

In this economy, you will struggle to find someone willing to hire a candidate that needs training. Think about it, would you want somebody shadowing your work and asking questions for the first 6 months? Or would you want somebody that knows the score and gets busy contributing to your targets from day one? Having the right skills and experience is more important than ever and unfortunately not something you can work on overnight.

4. Staying power with the business

This is crucial as employers want people that stay in their company and work their way up the corporate ladder. This makes them useful (and useful means hard working). Employers will look for people who have multi-dimensional personalities, meaning they can work in different departments, projects or even locations one day. Your longevity with the business and personal characteristics will be the deciding factors here.

5. You get on with people

This is significant as the employer will want you to enjoy spending time at work, thus you won’t mind the occasional/weekly/everyday late night. By having a sense of belonging to the people at work, you are likely to enjoy it more and be less susceptible to other job offers. And in general our ability to work well with lots of different people is a critical key to your success over time within any company.

6. You can bring home the bacon

A classic WIIFM case where you either make money or save money for the company. Any manager has a budget and they want a way to either increase sales or reduce costs. You being able to do one of these will be music to their ears. If you can demonstrate and project how much you will put on his or her bottom line, they will be very tempted to hire you. So your job will be to present your exact plan for doing this and leave it with them. In the end you would be doing them a favor and helping them hit their numbers.

7. Positive attitude and enthusiasm

The business world is full of moaners and the last thing a hiring manager wants is another union card wielding sinker on their team. If you are able to lift the moods of your intervierwers by way of charisma, humor or any other magic, you stand a lot better chance of being considered for the next round. Everyone is attracted to happy and positive people and if you lack experience and skills, this could be your trump card. By staying positive and radiating enthusiasm long after you landed the job, you can inspire others and demonstrate that you are promotion material.

via 7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You.

7 Reasons Employers Will Hire You

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job

As an experienced counselor with a fairly deep understanding of human nature, I can say this with total confidence: job interviews freak people out!

In my time as a therapist, I’ve interacted with some truly capable people. I’ve coached business professionals who wield a great deal of influence, I’ve counseled semi-professional athletes ready to take their game to the next level, and I’ve mentored bright-eyed college grads who had a lot of ambition and very big dreams.

And no matter who I talk to, I’m always amazed to find that all of them (and I mean, all of them!) experienced a great deal of anxiety at the thought of being interviewed.

From a psychological perspective, the fear is totally reasonable. The dynamics of a interview are wildly unsettling, and play on our innate fear of rejection.

Think about it: an interview is a time-limited interaction with a total stranger, who will judge every single word you say, and analyze every action you make. He or she will openly scrutinize you. A few days or weeks after your meeting with the stranger, you will receive a phone call or an email, and be notified whether you have been rejected or not.

Not fun. Pretty terrifying, really.

So, as I noticed each of my clients was experiencing the same emotion regarding the same event, I put together an intervention to help them relax, focus, and make the most of every interview they find themselves on. The techniques I used are listed below, and each one is simple, actionable, and, most importantly, backed up with a lot of research! Use them to your advantage:

1) Envision your success before you start:

Visualization is frequently used in the sports world, and many public figures (notably Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey) have sworn by the principle’s powers. The idea is simple: condition yourself for the goal you want to achieve by imagining it clearly in your mind.

It sounds simple, but the research backs up the idea. One study showed that “mental practice” is almost as effective as actual, physical practice, and that doing mental practice and physical practice is more effective than either practice alone.

So how does it work? Visualization activities must follow a very specific path. First, find a quiet place and relax. Then begin to imagine yourself with the person or the people interviewing you: what do they ask you? How do you answer some of the tough questions they ask? How do you calm yourself when you begin to feel nervous? The clearer your visualization, the better the technique works.

In truth, visualization is really a form of preparation: you imagine the obstacles you’ll face, and you creative find ways to meet and overcome them.

2) Use social proof to your advantage:

We are intrinsically social creatures, and we are constantly reading the emotional cues of the people around us. It is nature’s most effective way of learning about danger and learning about opportunity, and it is deeply engrained into our psyches.

So how does that affect your job search?

Almost 65% of all new employees at any given company attained their interview through someone they know. There are plenty of conclusions you can draw from this (the most obvious being – if you’re looking for a job, you’re most likely to get it through someone you know, so tap into your contacts), but the important idea is that your interviewer will be more likely to hire you if someone can vouch for you. If you use your network to get your job interview, you are providing powerful social proof, and your interviewer already knows that someone values you.

Unfortunately, many people interpret the 65% statistic to mean that the odds are against them if they’re going into an interview without a connection to the interviewer. Luckily, you can provide social proof in your interview discussion. There are two ways to do this:

1. During your interview, talk about people you know, and share stories about working with your bosses and interacting with decision-makers are your previous company. Don’t be boastful and don’t be a name-dropper, but make sure that your interviewer gets the feeling that others liked working with you and valued your efforts.


2. Provide your own social proof. The trend is to include the words “References available upon request” somewhere near the end of your resume, which is thoughtful – after all, you don’t don’t want to deluge your interviewer with paper (especially before they’re interested in you). But if you’ve made it to the interview stage, do not leave your interviewer’s office without handing him a letter of recommendation. The letter can be from a former employer, an old professor that you’ve worked with, or a community leader that you’ve volunteered for, but make sure it’s a person with recognizable authority, and make sure it details you as competent, motivated, and easy to work with.

3) Give yourself a 24/7 pep talk:

A researcher at the University of Pennsylvania found that personal success was almost invariably related to that person’s “explanatory style”. That is, the most reliable way to tell whether a person will succeed or fail is to see whether they interpret their life in an optimistic or a pessimistic way.

The research makes sense: how you interpret your circumstances determines how you feel, and how you feel determines how well you perform.

So be nice to yourself! When you think about your job hunt, interpret your efforts in an uplifting way that makes the situation seem positive. If you’ve recently been laid off and you’re looking for work, don’t interpret your job loss as a negative: think of the new adventures you’ll have at your next place of employment, and how you’re about to take the next step of your professional career. If you’re looking for your first job out of college, don’t see yourself as inexperienced, but rather as a blank slate ready to dive in and learn all you can at your new job.

Chances are that even though you’re speaking nicely to yourself, you’ll still feel nervous, and that’s normal – expected, even. But you have a choice: you can speak kindly to yourself and foster positive feelings, or you can beat yourself up and feel awful. Not all choices are easy, but this seems simple.

Go get ‘em!

Remember, job interviews can be daunting, but you’ve got some pretty powerful tools to use: you can see the outcome you want, you can use social proof to display your value, and you can get psyched, because the job you want is almost yours!

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job.

3 Ways to Stay Cool in Interviews and Get Your Dream Job

How To Get a Job at Google, Facebook or Apple [INFOGRAPHIC]

Jobs at Google, Facebook and Apple are the most sought-after careers in the Silicon Valley. 1 in 4 young professionals want to work at Google, but fewer than 1 in 250 applicants will ever work at the company. Knowing what types of skills and expertise these companies are looking for will somehow give you an idea whether you stand a chance to enjoy the perks that these companies provide to its employees.

In an infographic published by Masters Degree, aspiring applicants may now have an idea on how to land a job at these tech giants. It also highlights the best paying tech jobs, the biggest tech hotspots in the US, the top in demand developer skills, and reveals the current openings. Furthermore, it provides jobseekers tips on what some subjects you can study to help you land a job with one of them. Since Google, Facebook and Apple use recruiters, the infographic also shows how you can better optimize your resume.

With the country still deep in recession, the jobs situation seems to be worsening with each passing day. Americans are seriously hurting, and with through-the-roof unemployment combined with stagnant wages, large-scale economic recovery seems a long ways off. A few industries, however, seem impervious to decline, and tech is one of those industries.

via How To Get a Job at Google, Facebook or Apple [INFOGRAPHIC].

How To Get a Job at Google, Facebook or Apple [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers

Many different integrated apps have tried to introduce recruiting and job finding into Facebook, but none have been entirely successful. I was invited to one I had not heard of before – Glassdoor – and it seemed interesting so I tried it. I will now review this app and website – a new way to find jobs and leave feedback on past and current employers, anonymously.

Glassdoor was voted the ‘Best Employment Site 2012’ by the Webby Awards, and is touted as ‘a free inside look at jobs and companies’. Employees can leave anonymous salary information, reviews, interview questions and photographs from current and past employees. Think TripAdvisor for jobs – if you are considering a job offer from a particular company you probably want to check out what others think of it.

Activation

Whether you are invited to join Glassdoor (as I was) or you search for the app via Facebook, a connection page first appears, where you can alter profile visibility. As with all apps, you can set the visibility as ‘Public’, ‘Friends’ or ‘Me’ – which may be useful if you have current employers or colleagues in your ‘Friends’ list. This automatic connection to your Facebook profile allows Glassdoor to use your original Facebook profile information (such as schooling and jobs) to create a separate Glassdoor profile (you can change/delete this information later on).

A typical Glassdoor profile lists only ‘Work Experience’, ‘Education’ and ‘Connections’ with current job title under your name and uses your current Facebook profile picture (so make sure it’s a good one, as you can’t change it!). The profile information is linked back to Facebook-type pages for each company (to be discussed later).

Profile Completion

Once signed up, I had a 60% complete profile with a ‘Basic’ membership. The first important step was to complete my profile with Glassdoor giving me a list of tasks to do, each with a percentage that would total 100% when all three were done. My three tasks were ‘Add current city’, ‘Invite 3 friends’ and “‘Like’ or ‘+1’”. The ‘Add current city’ was an easy option in the Profile, with drop down suggestions for town names and locations.

The ‘Invite 3 friends’ option was annoying. This is done through a page where you are invited to ‘Include’ a certain amount of Facebook friends (either ALL of your Facebook friends, or all of your colleagues from school, University or a workplace), with the idea that the more friends you have, the more connections you will have. The invite window (a “private” request) is not very helpful either – you cannot remove people – so you cannot choose specific people to invite to the app.

The Like or +1 element of the profile is a clever marketing tool for the company’s social pages. You have to complete both elements – liking the Facebook page and +1 the company on Google+ to gain the added 10%. Once you ‘Like’ the company, it will appear on your profile page, enticing your friends to sign up. This will allow Glassdoor’s presence on both sites to increase.

You are then asked to write a review/salary/interview post or upload a workplace photograph to grant yourself an ‘Unlimited’ membership. There are two types of membership on the Glassdoor website – the ‘Basic’ membership and the ‘Unlimited’ membership.

The website states that “all new members automatically get a Basic Membership with 1-month of access to everything posted by our community.”  However, no payment is needed for unlimited membership (as the site is financed by large ads on every page), as it “only takes a minute” to upgrade. “Simply give back to the community by posting an anonymous inside look of your own — remember, your posts are anonymous.”

The wording is extremely casual and friendly, and shows a sense of applying to a younger generation – maybe graduates or people looking for their first job. It is also a crucial point that everything is anonymous – no matter whether you are posting a positive/negative report, you will never be found out.

Connections

The front page of Glassdoor boasts the bold sentence: “Most jobs are found through an inside connection. Each friend that joins Glassdoor allows you to see more connections at more companies”. The main aspect of Glassdoor is the more people you add (who then accept), the more connections you will have, and also access to a higher number of companies will be granted. However, people have been getting annoyed at the app requests on Facebook (as a simple Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ will show), as not everyone may be looking for a job at the time you invite them!

Writing a Review

When you write a ‘Company Review’ or post a Salary, you are asked to select between Current or Former Employer. If your employer is not yet listed, you are asked to enter some details (website, type and number of employees (from drop down menus), and the Headquarters City).

Once submitted, a new form appears (with again a reminder that it is anonymous at the top) and the user can rate a number of elements of the job, as well as give ‘Pros’, ‘Cons’ and ‘Advice to Management’ as well as whether you would recommend this employer to a friend, and where your job prospects are looking for the next 6 months (up or down). Next to each submission form is an important ‘Message to Our Community’, a sign that fairness and good quality is crucial to Glassdoor.

When submitting a photo, the rules outline that a “behind-the-scenes look” is needed and the user is informed that they may upload 10 photos. All content is reviewed before being posted on the site – a simple way to ensure that people cannot tarnish a company or the website itself.

The website is then split into four sections – ‘Jobs’, ‘Companies & Reviews’, ‘Salaries’ and ‘Interviews’, with a separate blog.

Jobs

‘Jobs’ lists available Jobs in a certain area, with change range and date posted. Each job links to the Company Overview, Reviews, Salaries and Interviews of the company posting the job – and these elements are extremely detailed (the Review has an average rating from all posts).

Companies & Reviews

Under this section, there are the ‘Featured Companies’, with the ‘Most Popular Companies’, ‘Best Places To Work’ and ‘Companies and Reviews By Industry’. Each company is given its own page on the site (which they can edit to describe the company’s missions/morals and other details), and a link to its Facebook and Twitter feed. Everything about this website is based around sharing – sharing information on companies, sharing connections with your Facebook ‘friends’, and sharing your use of the site.

Salaries

The ‘Salaries’ part of the website is the one which may be the most problematic – for two main reasons. Firstly, people may lie about their salaries, either directly (to sound as if they earn/have earned more) or indirectly (mistakenly inputting the wrong salary).

Secondly, current employees of the company could use it to look up other people’s salaries (either for the same job title or the same company), and this could cause friction in the workplace and even complaints (if someone was secretly earning more than you, but doing the same job). This is the section that Glassdoor have to take care with the most, to ensure it does not cause more harm than good.

Interviews

Interviews are listed by job and company, with the most popular from both in separate tables. Interviews are also tagged, with the most used tags in a chart at the bottom of the page. When an interview question is clicked on, it can be answered, tagged or commented upon. This is useful for interviewees (to prepare) and interviewers alike (as they can change the questions they ask, in case it becomes a very popular post on the website).

Is Glassdoor useful for job seekers?

Yes. It is an extremely handy tool which people can use to choose the right company and job to apply for (by using the reviews and salaries section). However, it needs to be handled with caution – rogue posts (both positive and negative) may have passed through the system, and it should be used with a pinch of salt.

Is Glassdoor useful for employers?

It is more necessary than useful for employers. Again, the posts should be taken with a pinch of salt, but may be needed to improve work ethics at the company, and fairness in terms of salaries, as well as changing interviews to make sure that every candidate passes the interview easily.

Pros?

There are many different pros for Glassdoor:

• This website is one of a kind – there is no other major site where you can review your company, post your salary, photos and interview questions, all anonymously.


• Reviews are always checked before they are posted to ensure for a fairness, with guidelines clearly set out so as not to allow any malicious posts.


• Glassdoor uses prizes to get people to write anonymous reviews or salary posts – in this case I was offered the chance to win a free iPad in return for a post – so you may receive a really good prize for writing 100 words.


• It is extremely difficult to find negative reviews – there is no lowest rated company chart etc. This makes it fairer to companies to ensure that they are not brought down or trash talked.


• It has a clear layout, with easy navigation and titles, and an interesting design.

Cons?

• The ‘include’/invite friends element is the main con. Sometimes with these apps, you don’t want to include all your friends (such as bosses/fellow colleagues which you may have in your Facebook friends). A quick Twitter search of ‘Glassdoor Facebook’ brings up a lot of frustration about the app requests sent by friends.


• You cannot change your picture (say if you want a different photo to your Facebook profile picture).


• The website is coded in HTML, and could be made to look slicker and smoother.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Glassdoor is an interesting website with many pros and cons. It works in terms of ‘connections’, so is extremely similar to LinkedIn. Is it trying to be a better LinkedIn or just a simpler LinkedIn (that anyone can connect to), with the added anonymous review elements? I feel that Glassdoor is extremely useful for first-time job seekers (as well as employers), but is more aimed towards the Facebook generation, who like to share a vast amount of information – as it easy to use with its casual language, prizes and large graphics.

via How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers.

How Glassdoor Gives Candidates an Inside Look at Employers

12 Things You Wish You’d Known Before Taking the Job [INFOGRAPHIC]

You’ve been offered a job, and you want to take it – but what do you need to check before you take it?

This infographic by Donna Svei outlines 12 things you need to note before taking a position.

Takeaways:

• How many of the employees are on LinkedIn with phone numbers? They might want out!


• Google the company’s name and see what the media is saying under ‘News’.


• Ask how many people have held the position in the last five years – maybe look for reasons for a quick turnover!

via 12 Things You Wish You’d Known Before Taking the Job [INFOGRAPHIC].

12 Things You Wish You’d Known Before Taking the Job [INFOGRAPHIC]

What are the Most Annoying Characteristics of a Horrible Boss? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Bosses can either be nice or nasty, a joy or horrible. They can make you hate your job, or love it.

In this infographic (courtesy of OfficeVibe) below we look at the 12 most annoying characteristics of a horrible boss – are there any you recognize?

Takeaways:

• The worst leaders take all the credit, but pass the blame for mistakes.


• These bad bosses are led by fear and think that it is an effective way of managing it.


• They are resistant to change and fail to understand that change is sometimes good.


• Horrible bosses need to take control over everything, and having a problem with giving that up.


• Good leaders need to be able to make decisions quickly – indecisiveness shows a weakness.

via What are the Most Annoying Characteristics of a Horrible Boss? [INFOGRAPHIC].

What are the Most Annoying Characteristics of a Horrible Boss? [INFOGRAPHIC]

What NOT to Do in a Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC]

Going to a job interview is probably one of life’s greatest ordeals, where you have less than an hour to sell yourself and get the job that may well change your life.

Being under pressure can change the way we behave, think, speak. Don’t despair, recruiters are used to see people feeling stressed out and it is not dramatic as long as dealing with pressure is not at the nexus of the job you’re applying for.

As you can imagine, a lot of weird stories have happened in the recruiter’s office and the infographic below, courtesy of Talener, presents some tips, horror stories as well as trends from hiring managers.

Takeaways:

• Don’t bring your parents to the interview. Yes, some people really do!


• Remember that the 1st impression is key.


• Pay a close attention to the way you write your thank you note. Keep it professional and short.

via What NOT to Do in a Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC].

What NOT to Do in a Job Interview [INFOGRAPHIC]

17 Tips to Impressing Your Interviewer [INFOGRAPHIC]

Interviewing is the key to exploring a candidate in depth for a hiring manager. A candidate must know some basics before entering the interview room to maximize their probability of being selected!

This infographic by en world lists the necessary tips to impressing interviewers.

Takeaways:

• Preparation: Prepare yourself with important information, such as the time slot for the interview, the venue and a little knowledge about the interviewer as well.


• Show up early: Nervousness is very common in job interviews, and if by chance a candidate is delayed while traveling to the interview venue, stress builds further. So be sure to leave early so that you can absorb the surroundings and remain calm!


• Be confident about your resume: Know every detail about things you have written on your resume, especially profiles and achievements. You may also carry a copy with you.

 

via 17 Tips to Impressing Your Interviewer [INFOGRAPHIC].

17 Tips to Impressing Your Interviewer [INFOGRAPHIC]

The State of Social Recruiting [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Jobvite have just announced the results of its annual Social Recruiting Survey. Now in its sixth year, the Jobvite annual Social Recruiting Survey is the most comprehensive of its kind. The survey was completed in July 2013 by more than 1,600 recruiting and human resources professionals.

This year’s data underscores that social recruiting is an essential HR practice used by 94% of surveyed recruiters across industries, up from 78% in 2008, the first year the survey was conducted. In an indication of the increasingly competitive hiring environment, only 1.5% of respondents predict that hiring will become less competitive in the coming year.

The report affirms the ROI social recruiting, with 60% of recruiters estimating the value of their social media hires as greater than $20,000 per year, and 20% estimating the value as greater than $90,000 per year. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter continue to be the most used channels by recruiters, with an increase in adoption of emerging, specialized and localized social networks including GitHub, Yammer, Stackoverflow, Pinterest and Instagram.

Recruiters Use Multiple Channels to Build their Hiring Funnel

With 9 out of 10 surveyed companies using social media in their recruiting strategy, candidates and companies are now in direct communication, all the time.

• Recruiters use LinkedIn 93% of the time to search, contact, and keep tabs on candidates in the hiring process.


• Facebook and Twitter are the main channels that recruiters use to showcase employer brand – 65% of recruiters surveyed use Facebook and 47% of recruiters use Twitter to post about company culture.


• Recruiters continue to use social media even after sourcing and contacting candidates — a reported 18% use Twitter and 25% use Facebook to vet candidates after the interview process.

Law of Attraction: The Best Attract The Best

The best employees tend to attract the best candidates. Whether there is an overlap from college or at a previous job, every employee contact is also a potential candidate. Social media has opened candidate networks far larger than recruiters have ever used before.

• 1 in 3 recruiters report that social media recruiting improved both the quantity and quality of candidates.


• Referrals represent the highest quality source of candidates (64%); social networks and corporate career sites have also jumped in significance (59%).


• 43% of employees from referrals and company career pages stay longer than 3 years, while only 14% of job board hires stay longer than three years.


• Referrals are the highest-rated source of new hires, and it’s far easier for employees to share jobs through social networks. A reported 73% of recruiters report they will increase their investment in social networks in 2013, while 62% report they will increase their referral incentives.

Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll: Don’t Share Exploits Publicly

Qualified job seekers should note the increasing importance of their total social presence beyond LinkedIn. 93% of recruiters report reviewing candidates’ social profile in the hiring process. 42% have reconsidered a candidate based on content from social profiles.

• Illegal drug usage meets with the most universal disapproval, with 83% of recruiters reporting a negative reaction to such posts.


• Sexual posts (70%) and profanity (65%) are also frowned upon by recruiters – a 5% jump from the 2012 survey.


• In a year of numerous high-profile gun-related incidents, gun references trigger negative reactions among 50% of recruiters. However, a majority of recruiters (65%) remain neutral toward overtly political posts.

via The State of Social Recruiting in 2013 [INFOGRAPHIC].

The State of Social Recruiting [INFOGRAPHIC]

How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Our friends at Jobvite recently conducted a nationwide online omnibus survey of 1,303 U.S. job seekers who are currently in employment. Here are some of the main takeaways (scroll down for the infographic).

Social job seekers

86% of job seekers have an account on at least one of the six online social networks included with this study; Facebook, Linkedin, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. Social job seekers are younger, more highly educated and more likely to be employed full-time.

Facebook

76% of social job seekers found their current position through Facebook. Three most popular activities on Facebook:

• 27% contact shared a job opportunity


• 25% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 22% shared a job opportunity with a contact

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linkedin

LinkedIn is where they do most of their job-seeking activity

• 40% contact referred me for a job


• 34% contact shared a job opportunity


• 32% made a new professional connection


• 32% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company

Twitter

• Twitter is the most popular place to ask others for help and advice:

Next three most popular activities on Twitter:

• 29% shared a job opportunity with a contact


• 28% contact provided an employee’s perspective on a company


• 28% contact shared a job opportunity

Privacy

46% of job seekers have modified their privacy settings. Job seekers are as likely to delete their account completely as they are to remove specific content from their profiles. And recruiters are looking:

• 93% of recruiters are likely to look at a candidate’s social profile.


• 42% have reconsidered a candidate based on content viewed in a social profile, leading to both positive and negative re-assessments

 

The college educated are also 4x as likely to update their LinkedIn with professional info than those who are high-school educated or less, and almost 2x as likely to do so on a mobile device.

Most popular social networks

While job seekers flock to Facebook, recruiters prefer Linkedin when searching for candidates. Most popular social networks for…

Job seekers:

• Facebook 83%


• Twitter 40%


• Google+ 37%


• LinkedIn 36%

Recruiters:

• LinkedIn 94%


• Facebook 65%


• Twitter 55%


• Google + 18%

While 94% of recruiters are active on Linkedin, only 36% of job seekers are.

The mobile job seeker

Frequent job-changers are more likely than average to have searched for jobs or had contact with a potential employer on their mobile device: 64% of adults who change jobs every 1-5 years vs. 43% overall.

43% of job seekers have used their mobile device to engage in job-seeking activity

• 27% of job seekers expect to be able to apply for a job from their mobile device.


• 37% of millennial job seekers expect career websites to be optimized for mobile.

Percentage of job seekers rating the following “important” in their job search:

• 55% ability to see job openings or listings without having to register


• 27% ability to apply for jobs from a mobile device


• 23% website optimized for mobile devices


• 11% ability to use Linkedin profile or online resume to apply for a job

Mobile and social

Mobile job seekers are more likely to turn to Facebook than Linkedin in their job search. Percentage of job seekers who have done the following on a mobile device:

Updated their profile with professional information:

• 15% Facebook


• 11% Twitter


• 6% Linkedin

Searched for a job:

• 12% Facebook


• 7% Linkedin


• 6% Twitter

 

via How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC].

How Job Seekers Use Social Media and Mobile in 2014 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Top 10 Things to Bring to a Job Interview

So you’ve got the interview. You’ve got through the resume stage and you’re ready to go meet your possible future employer.

You’ve decided what you’re going to wear, the questions you’re going to ask – but what should you take with you on the day?

JobCluster has the answer with their infographic below – take a look!

Takeaways:

• Always remember to take a pen. Why? You might need to write something down!


• Keep a snack or some food on your person, just incase you’re delayed and get hungry!


• Make sure you take all the important documents with you – a copy of your resume etc…


• It will probably be stuck to your side, but don’t forget your phone – you can let the interviewer know if you’re running late!


• Carefully write down the details of the interview – the name of the person you’re meeting, location etc.

 

via Top 10 Things to Bring to a Job Interview.

Top 10 Things to Bring to a Job Interview