Blogging as a Recruitment Tool

Blogging as a Recruitment Tool In 2016, you’d be hard-pressed to find any successful business without a blogging presence. Whether businesses are truly committed to blogging or not is one thing, but most at least play along because they’ve repeatedly been told that it’s a best practice. But, despite the fact that most businesses have blogs, very few realize just how powerful this platform can be as a recruitment and talent acquisition tool. “A blog can serve as the foundation for just about anything you want â€" a personal brand, an enterprise level business, a multi-million dollar content provider or a startup,” says Neil Patel, successful internet marketer and blogger extraordinaire. “A blog is super important.” And while these big-picture concepts are all wonderful, a blog also has the potential to help businesses expand their talent pools. Check out some of the things you can do with your own company’s blog to bolster your recruitment strategy: 1. Openly highlight your culture One of the primary goals of your blog should be to humanize your brand. Blogging is a chance to open up and voice opinions and beliefs in a long-form manner that speaks to your audience and engages them over time. Specifically, you should take the time to openly highlight your culture. What makes your organization so great? What priorities do you have in terms of caring for employees and helping them accomplish personal goals? Is there room for upward mobility? Answering questions like these will help you better resonate with prospective candidates. 2. Discuss job openings in depth A posting on a job board is one thing. Meticulously discussing the details of that job opening on your blog is another. When you take the time to profile openings and really discuss the details about the position, you end up garnering more interest and getting more qualified candidates. This saves everyone’s time and increases the chances of finding a strong connection. 3. Give employees a voice Prospective candidates want to know what your organization is truly like. While the owner, CEO, or a hired writer can discuss some of the ins and outs of the company, they ultimately want to hear from the employees. You can honor this wish by giving your employees a voice and letting some of your team members publish testimonials and share experiences on your company blog. 4. Share posts on social media The only way to maximize the value of your blogging efforts is to share on social media. Not only should you share new posts on your branded social profiles, but you should also encourage employees to share. There’s something very influential about an employee sharing a blog post about why they love their job. Plus, this increases your reach and puts your brand in front of hundreds or thousands of people who could be interested in joining your team. 5. Build thought leadership Whether you realize it or not, every time your company publishes something on the blog, you’re telling people what you stand for. Hopefully, you’re posting authoritative content that establishes thought leadership. And while thought leadership goes far beyond talent acquisition, it certainly helps in shaping your image. “Start sharing news that’s relevant to candidates’ professional aspirations,” recruiting expert Laura Byrne says. “By posting about a topic they care about, you achieve two things: 1) you add value by putting news on their radar, and 2) you show them your company shares their interests.” Are you leveraging blogging? While your company is probably already posting a few times a month, are you fully leveraging your blog to its maximum capacity? Blogging is a powerful resource that has the ability to fundamentally change your organization from the inside out. Author:  Larry Alton is an independent business consultant specializing in social media trends, business and entrepreneurship. Follow him on Twitter  and LinkedIn.

Write an About Me Page that Reflects Your Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Write an About Me Page that Reflects Your Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Writing about yourself is often difficult to do objectively, clearly and concisely.  But, if you have your own website or blog, your “About Me” page is an important way of conveying your brand to your audience. 4 important things to share Who you are Your expertise How you can help them with their problem or goal How to contact you First impression Your “About Me” page is often the first impression visitors will get of you and your website. It’s important for it to align with the brand you’re trying to establish (or already have established) by including your experience, education, expertise, and reasoning behind launching your website or blog. State goals for your website. For example, if you write and teach about search engine optimization, state in your “About Me” that the goal of your website is to “help people learn about the best practices in SEO today.” It’s important to come off as a real person. While there is no need to share your full life story (and many readers wouldn’t read it, anyhow), using your real name and sharing some interesting facts about yourself helps you connect with your audience. Posting a picture is another good way to gain credibility for your brand and help visitors understand who you are. Tell visitors about you in an interesting, relevant story. Sometimes, “About Me” pages are bland. They lack creativityâ€"and might bore potential readers into navigating to another website. A story is a great way to hook someone into wanting to read (and learn) more about you. Think about it: What makes you an expert? What makes you special? What kind of person are you, and how do you want others to perceive you? Why should they listen to you, buy from you, or work with you? What do you think is the most important thing to have on your “About Me” page? Author: Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder president of Come Recommended, a content marketing consultancy for organizations with products or services that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), national entry-level careers columnist for Examiner.com and blogs about career advice at HeatherHuhman.com.

The ladder isnt the only way up

The ladder isnt the only way up Many twentysomethings talk about feeling undervalued by corporate America. Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman are doing what many others are doing to solve this problem: starting their own company. At universities like Harvard and Carnegie Mellon 30-40% of graduates end up starting their own business after five years, and the trend is poised to go up. The entry-level job inherently undervalues someone who is bright and driven, according to Paul Graham, partner at Y Combinator, a Cambridge-based venture capital firm that funds startups almost exclusively from very young people. He sees entrepreneurship as the great escape. For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete, says Graham. For the last hundred years everyone started out at the bottom. Even if the candidate held extreme promise, corporations put the candidate as a trainee on the bottom rung so he didnt get a big head. Graham writes, The most productive young people will always be undervalued by large organizations, because the young have no performance to measure yet, and any error in guessing their ability will tend toward the mean. So, if you are smart and energetic, you might be better off working for yourself. Ohanian and Huffman started their own company before they even graduated from University of Virginia. Today they are twenty-two, and running their company, Reddit, out of their Cambridge apartment. Huffman turned down a job offer at a software company in Virginia so that he could write the software for Reddit, which is a little like social book marking and a little like RSS feed: Think the five most emailed Boston Globe stories only not just the newspaper but the whole wide web. The value of people in their twenties is touted fervently at Google, a company always on the lookout to buy companies from young entrepreneurs. On a blog entry about a conference for entrepreneurs in their early twenties, Chris Sacca, principal for new business development at Google wrote, I was instantly struck by the sheer energy of the crowd. No one was running off to check in with their assistant or jump onto a mindless conference call with sales finance. Graham estimates that a top programmer can work for $80,000 a year in a large company, but he can be 36 more times productive without corporate trappings (e.g. a boss, killed projects, interruptions) and will generate something worth three million dollars in that same year if he is working on his own. Before you balk at those figures, consider that Ohanian and Huffman started their company in June 2005 and by November 2005 they received a buyout offer from Google, (which they declined in favor of continuing to build the company on their own.) But not everyone is sitting on a great idea for a company. For those who eventually want to start your own business once your find an idea use the time beforehand to learn the right skills. Jennifer Floren, CEO of Experience and an entrepreneur herself, recommends going to a small company where you will usually be able to see first hand what each part of the company does. At a big company you wont get such wide exposure. Also, look for opportunities to be creative or take a leadership role, two good types of experience for an entrepreneur to have. If you have spent some time in the workforce, consider becoming a consultant, which essentially is making a business out of yourself. You should have at least five years of workplace experience before you go on your own, says Laurie Young, co-principle of Flexible Resources, because you are offering your experience. Also, you need marketing skills to sell yourself. It takes a certain kind of talent to show people you have skills they can use. Alexandra Levit worked in public relations for Computer Associates and then struck out on her own, as a consultant in publicity and marketing communications. In terms of making the transition, Levit advises that you try lining up a few jobs that you can have before you take the leap, and be prepared to spend about 30% of your time marketing yourself. Levit provides a snapshot of reality for all entrepreneurs when she says, Dont expect the drawbacks to be only financial. You need a lot of self-discipline to sit down in your home office and work without any external pressure. Working for yourself means youre responsible for every aspect of the business, and this means, ironically, even the boring, entry-level job that you would have done in a big company. Ohanim can attest to this, too: I am spending a lot of time right now doing our taxes. We merged with a company and they kept terrible records. But, he says, I really like the notion of not having to look to a superior, to have independence and be doing the entrepreneurial thing.

How to Manage your Boss

How to Manage your Boss @work as a guest blogger at Career Rocketeer It’s not easy being the boss.   Your manager’s job is to provide direction.   Yours is to get the work done â€" and done right.   But management can be a two way street, and whether or not you’re seen as a valuable asset depends in part on how well you do these three things. Ask questions. Never attend a project meeting without taking notes; don’t rely on your memory, especially in a dynamic discussion. Good questions show you’re listening, and help to clarify. “Will this be a similar project to the ABC Company merger last year?”   “Would the report format I used for the Johnson case be appropriate?” Asking about precedents helps to clarify the scope of a new project. Your questions should always include deadlines (see below) and resources.   Ask about budgets and who you’ll be working with, and send a quick email to summarize the project after your meeting.   Your manager can correct immediately any errors or assumptions you’ve made, saving you time and frustration later. The most powerful question a worker can ask is “What if?”   It signals that you’re thinking ahead and innovating.   “What if we tried it from another angle?” can be a way to help your manager find creative solutions.   Questions like “What if the client funding falls through?” show that you’re thinking ahead and preparing for contingencies.   Be careful here: one or two “What ifs” are helpful to your boss; more than a few may peg you as fearful of taking risks or obstructive. Give progress reports.   When your manager delegates a task or a project, you should always try to get a sense of how urgent it is.   Even the simplest of tasks may become burning issues when they impact others.   “Would you please make a copy of these reports?” is a very different request than “Please make copies of these â€" the CFO is waiting for them upstairs.” If you don’t get a sense of how critical a task is, ask. If your boss doesn’t give you a deadline for a project, ask for one.  It’s crucial that you understand which projects take priority over others. It never hurts to let your boss know when you’ve finished something.   A quick email to say “I connected with Mr. Jones, and we have an appointment on Tuesday” closes the loop and helps your boss cross another item off her “to-do” list.   Likewise, when you’re having trouble finishing a project, inform her. Notes or emails that say “I just wanted to let you know â€" I haven’t been able to get the data yet, but it should be available early next week” notify your manager that you’re still working on the project, and haven’t forgotten about it or let it languish. Knowing how to manage deadlines is another important skill.   Don’t delay telling your manager that you’re going to miss a deadline â€" tell him as early as you can.   You should know from experience how much time your manager builds into a deadline.   If he’s a last minute person, he’s going to have less flexibility in his timeline. If he’s a structured planner, he’ll have more flexibility, but be more distressed by delays.   Either way, he’ll want to know as early as possible that the deadline will have to be changed. Deliver bad news. Everyone has had to deliver bad news at some point.   It’s never easy, but you can minimize the damage.   First, try to have all the facts, including the worst of the news, before you go in.   A good manager will want to know the worst case scenario.   You should have it ready.   If you can, offer possible solutions with the news â€" after all, you’ve had time to think about it longer than your boss.   What managers do best is make decisions, so her natural instinct will be to ask for alternatives to act on.   Whatever the situation, it’s never a good idea to come in blaming others; if you’re delivering the news, you must have had a stake in what happened.   Be forthright about the role you played in the disaster, and focus on how to fix it.   Bad things happen in every career; it’s how you handle them that determines how bright your future will be. Guest Expert: Candace Moody is a writer and workforce professional based in Jacksonville, Florida.   Her professional background includes experience in Human Resources, recruiting, and career consulting. Her column and features have appeared in the (Jacksonville) Florida Times-Union, the Atlanta Journal Constitution and 904 Magazine.     Her blog @work, is dedicated to helping workers find and keep a great job.

Why your phone calendar is your best friend and helps being organised

Why your phone calendar is your best friend and helps being organised This post was written by an external contributor. Connor reveals how to use your phone calendar to full effect. Among my friends, I’m always the one who shows up late or, if not reminded where I’m supposed to be, not at all. Life is hectic, and we have so much to remember that it can be impossible to always know what’s happening when. We all walk around with our head in our phones heck, we can walk down the street, face down, whilst avoiding everything that comes into our path. So, why not make use of your phone’s calendar so that you never have to deal with the embarrassment of showing up late again… and again… and again…? Here are my top tips on getting the most out of your phone’s calendar: Work, social, etc. One of the best features of your phone calendar is that you can view multiple calendars simultaneously. This is a lifesaver because it highlights your work/life balance and can help you prioritise should you double book yourself. Also, having separate calendars for work and social events gives you a colour-coded system in planning your week and you can add as many calendars as you like. For example, you could have separate calendars for work deadlines, meetings and events. This way, you’ll be able to identify at a glance how your time is shaping up, and what type of day you’re going to have. Location, location, location If you’re always late this will save your life. Like, literally. Not only does it mean that you’ll never forget exactly where you agreed to meet for lunch, but adding the location to each entry in your calendar means you will get a real-time update on when you’ll need to leave your current location in order to make it on time. Genius! Repeat event Paper diaries are all well and good, but they can be long and tedious to fill in. You must write out those repeat events you do every week over and over again. Well, no more, because you can set events to repeat as often as you like weekly, monthly, annually… however often you need! Another benefit of this is that you can set an end date, meaning that you can schedule your lectures for the semester, for example, and have your calendar entries end alongside your last class. This way, you’ll know exactly when you’ll have free time again (and it’s great for counting down to the end of the semester…) Add notes It’s one thing managing to show up on time, but turning up with everything you need is a whole other story. You can guarantee there’ll always be something, and that’s where the ‘notes’ section comes in handy. I note down everything and I mean everything and it’s saved me so many times. Too often we think ‘I’ll remember that’, and in ten minutes its gone. But if you note it down as soon as it’s mentioned, you’ll never forget again. Set alerts If you’ve something major coming up, set an alert to remind you in due time. If it’s an important meeting, give yourself 24 hours’ notice so you’re fully prepared. If it’s a deadline, get daily updates to kick yourself into gear. It sounds trivial, but you’ll be glad when you show up with everything in check. Plus, it’s a life saver for birthdays! Consistency is key Most important is consistency, and that means keeping on top of your calendar every day. Otherwise, what’s the point? Add every event and delete them if necessary that way you’ll be able to keep track of what you’re doing and what you’ve done. Remember, even if you have an event set to repeat, you can delete an individual entry. This way, you’ll not only be prepared in advance, but you can look back and feel accomplished at just how much you’ve got done over the course of a week. Download Debut  and connect with us  on  Facebook,  Twitter,  and  LinkedIn  for more careers insights.

Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Interviewing

Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before Interviewing Most job seekers struggle during interviews because their answers are not clear, concise, or memorable. Interview responses frequently veer off course, are too long, or contain extraneous information that dilutes the candidate’s original message.The best way to practice interviewing for a job is to record your responses and self-edit. You can download the Career Solvers mobile app for free here and use the interview workbook to practice responses to tough interview questions and record your responses.  Here are the questions job seekers should ask themselves when they review their interview recording:1. Is my response too general? Many job seekers think that responses to interview questions should be very general to show their big-picture thinking. But specific examples of success are what help build trust and confidence with a hiring manager.2. Does my response only describe my job tasks or does it showcase my accomplishments? Most hiring managers believe that past success is a g ood indicator of future success. Many of your competitors will possess similar job skills. Focus on the impact your knowledge had on the organizations you supported to prove how you do things smarter, faster, and more efficiently.3. Am I answering the question? First of all, make sure you understand the interviewer’s subtext, or what the question really means. Then, make sure you answer it. Don’t wander off track; focus on communicating a clear story that conveys your professional challenges, the actions you took to address those challenges, and the corresponding results that prove how you help companies make money, save money, save time, or grow the business.4. Is my answer too long? Long-winded responses are a pet peeve of many recruiters, HR professionals, and hiring managers. If your answer to an interview question is too long, the hiring manager might start tuning you out before you get to the best part of the story. As a general rule, responses that are more than 90 second s are probably too long. If your responses tend to ramble, reflect on the question, do some editing and continue to practice your answers until you can create a tighter, more digestible sound bite.5. Does my voice communicate enthusiasm and interest? Your body language contributes to your messaging, but your voice alone also plays a critical role. Is your speaking voice very soft or very loud? Is it monotone or are you using appropriate intonation to communicate your talking points and value? By listening to your pre-recorded voice, you can make adjustments to improve the quality of your message.You can also download our free e-book 33 Interview Tips to Make a Great First Impression for more insights on interviewing.

Writing a Good Resume Objective

Writing a Good Resume ObjectiveWriting a good resume objective is vital to getting the job you want. Most jobs require this one simple thing, but a lot of people do not put their best foot forward when it comes to this.Well, before we go any further, let me tell you how this will help you out. A resume objective, as we said, is a list of objectives that describe what you do for a particular position.The internet is a great place to start looking at this if you are a fresher. I suggest going to Google, searching for 'resume', and picking out a popular resume template to work from.Then you'll need to go to the 'Resume' tab, which is located at the top of the search results. Take note of the objective which should be on the top left hand side. You want to make sure that you address your objective in the text area under it.Now, it's time to write. Just imagine you have taken a specific job title and then written the entire objective. Make sure that you address every section of the docume nt that you can.Once you're done writing your good resume objective, go back and edit. You don't want to leave anything out and this will ensure that your objective is well structured.In conclusion, you should always have a very clear idea of what you want in your good resume objective. Make sure that you have an outline that will be easy to follow.Next, think about what the job title is about and whether or not you want to add anything to the list. Finally, write your objective and keep it fresh!