Top 5 Shameful Office Sins to Stay Clear of

Top 5 Shameful Office Sins to Stay Clear of Theres always one person in the office who never offers to make the teas or coffees, yet are the first to put their order in. Or that person who is always online checking their own social media accounts, playing games or indulging in a bit of retail shopping. A recent survey  asked 10,000 respondents what their biggest office sins were and  whilst a number of these are harmless and  do little more than annoy their colleagues, there are some which ends up costing the business thousands, if not millions of dollars. But more serious than that, there are a few that will give you a reputation at work which could hold you back from progressing with the company. The 5 biggest office sins Avoiding tea and coffee duties: Now this might seem like quite a harmless office sin, because lets face it, you not getting up to make the team a hot beverage doesnt actually cost the company any financial loss but it does cost YOU. Even though you may not realise it, your reluctance to be a team player may cost you that much sought-after promotion to a managerial or leader position. Nobody wants to work with selfish, lazy people and the companies certainly dont want work-shy managers. Faking illness:  Weve all done this on a few occasions and whilst you might think the odd day off here or there doesnt really matter it does. In a recent Absence Management Survey it found that in 2016 the average number of days lost per employee was 6.3 and a median annual absence cost of around   £522 per full-time equivalent employee. So while you may think having that extra duvet day is completely harmless it isnt. So only call in sick if you genuinely are. Inappropriate internet browsing:  With the emergence of smartphones many people resort to using their handsets to go online while theyre supposed to be working but there are a few brazen people who will happily use the companys browser (and time) to surf the net for non-work related stuff. While browsing the internet is one of the top reasons for wasting time at work, there are other ways employees can idle away those hours instead of doing proper work. The cost of this can run into thousands. Sleeping during meetings:  OK, so whether you want to admit to it or not, weve all had a quick snooze during a long boring meeting especially if youve just had a heavy lunch. Again this doesnt break the companys bank but it will make you a laughing-stock amongst your colleagues especially if you start snoring or dribbling. So try not to do it by taking in a large glass of cold water or an extra strong coffee. Eating a co-worker’s lunch:  Unless its a free lunch or an office treat this is a big no-no. It is never acceptable to help yourself to a colleagues food especially if theyve spent hours lovingly making it from scratch. Doing this will cost you the ultimate penalty your trust. Nobody wants to work with someone they cant trust and your boss certainly doesnt want someone they cant trust working for them. Today its the sandwiches, tomorrow it could be expensive equipment. You may say to yourself Oh I would never got that far but why go there at all? DO NOT STEAL FROM YOUR CO-WORKERS. FULL STOP. John Feldmann is a writer for Insperity Recruiting Services and has this advice for anyone who wants to clamp down on office misbehaviour, without compromising on mutual respect: While it’s important for employers to monitor productivity, placing restrictions on employees such as timed breaks or blocked social media sites never works. Instead, allowing them the freedom to work autonomously while meeting regularly to evaluate their progress is far more effective. Employers that trust their employees to do right will see them work that much harder to maintain that trust. Regarding employee theft or faking illness, this can directly affect team morale and work output, as well as hurt the company financially. It’s then management’s responsibility to determine the appropriate action or punishment before it results in strained employee relations, diminished work quality and financial loss. So, while we all enjoy a bit of office banter there is the danger of taking it too far and it could end up costing you the respect of your co-workers, or worst still, your job.

Writing Characters in Fiction Using Resume

Writing Characters in Fiction Using ResumeThe concept of writing characters in fiction using resume is simple. You can find a way to motivate your resume and easily give the essential information. However, there are also some things that you need to consider when putting your resume to writing as there are many things that you will write about.First, read your resume. You can include certain things in it that would be the basic details of your personality and profession. If you are looking for an ideal job in fiction writing, you can also include the experience of the works that you have done. It will definitely make you more attractive to other employers who will see this and give you a chance to write their stories.Secondly, do not forget to read the documents thoroughly to research. The best way to get a better job in fiction writing is to research for it. If you are not confident of what you want to write, you can simply refer to someone who is better at what he does. This can be any friend, a relative or even a family member. You can read their work and learn from their mistakes.Researching and trying to create similar situations in your resume is also important. It will help you in creating a more appealing picture of yourself. You will be able to come up with a perfect version of you by doing some researches in this matter.Lastly, try to come up with a catchy resume that will attract the prospective employer. Use words that are easy to remember and will be most appropriate for your business. Think about how your character can relate to the reader and try to stick to the basic elements that you need to be included in your resume.Writing characters in fiction using resume is quite easy if you know the basics. However, it would be good if you also have a lot of confidence in yourself. So, you should always come up with a creative resume that can give the information to the prospective employer without him thinking that you are only hired to fool him.Last bu t not least, try to come up with a realistic scenario of what you can write in fiction. It would be a good idea to understand the importance of creating an interesting story to help you gain a good reputation. Remember that you will be rewriting your resume and you will always want to come up with a unique version of your character.Be ready to take initiative. It is a good idea to have some people around to support you in this matter.

Use Resume Real Estate To Amplify Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Use Resume Real Estate To Amplify Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What you put on your resume is part of how you brand yourself. But where you place information on your resume can amplify it or bury it. You might have all the right information on your resume that brands you as the superior candidate. But if you place that information in the wrong place, your reader wont notice it when making the decision whether to offer you an interview. So your personal brand consists of more than the words you choose. Your resume real estate also has a strong effect on your personal brand. Remember that employers will decide whether to give you an interview or not in an average of 15 seconds. Also remember that your resume is almost always read online Since so many companies (and their outside recruiters) use some sort of applicant tracking system, they digitize all resumes received. In that 15 seconds, how much of your resume do you think a reviewer can read? Realistically, all your reader sees before making an interview decision is the top half of your first page. Print your resume and fold it in half thats the information your reader uses to decide if youll get an interview. The information below the fold is rarely considered when deciding if youll get an interview or the discard pile. This presents a conflict with how most of us actually write our resumes because theres a conflict with the traditional way most of us were taught to write resumes. Because almost all of us were taught to write our resumes with our best stuff on the first page. Hey, being on the first page is fine if your resume is being read on paper. But the interview/discard decision is almost always made based on reading your resume on screen so the reader can see much less right in front of their eyes. When you have your best information on the bottom half of your first page, or worse on page 2, youre making the assumption that anyone who is interested will get to your good stuff further down the resume. But remember your reader makes the decision if they are interested based on the top half of your first page. Therefore, your reader wont see your best stuff before they decide if they are interested or not. In reality, when you put compelling information on the bottom of your first page or on page 2 the placement causes you to lose opportunities. So start to think about where you present the information that forms your readers first impression. Is it where your reader can easily see it on screen in 15 seconds? Or are you writing your resume in a more traditional way, which has you bury it further down your resume, past the average readers decision point? Author: Phil Rosenberg is President of http://www.reCareered.com, a leading job search information website and gives complimentary job search webinars at http://ResumeWebinar.com. Phil also runs the Career Central group, one of Linkedin’s largest groups for job seekers and has built one of the 20 largest personal networks on Linkedin globally.

Millennials Adapt to Change Quickly - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Millennials Adapt to Change Quickly - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Companies are not permitted to discriminate in hiring based on a candidate’s age, because such discrimination is illegal. And yet they do it every day. Why? Why are younger people considered more desirable in the workplace? The simple answers are that they require less compensation; they’re hungry because they need to accumulate wealth for future years; sometimes they’re more educated and have advanced degrees; and they can stick around longer before retiring. There are other reasons too, such as getting sick less often and having more stamina. But there’s one crucial thing that people don’t often talk about: that younger generations can adapt more easily to change and therefore canâ€"and are willing toâ€"learn new things. Invariably, when more-mature people joke about the fact that if they need to do just about anything technology related, they phone their children or even their grandchildren. Younger generations’ brains are wired to deal more readily with modern technol ogy. And they don’t have to unlearn old technology. Today’s work environment requires the ability to adapt quickly to market demands. New technology is ubiquitous and evolving fast. Learning new things and immediately becoming able to use them are modern-age requirements. Younger people more easily learn. Older people often resist and can’t. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” as the adage says, is true for people more advanced in age. Many don’t know how to use a smartphone or how to e-mail or how to navigate the Internet or how to shop online. And they’ve come to believe they’re too old to learn; they’ve given up on learning new things. Employers are fully aware of that phenomenon and consider the age of an applicant before making an offer. Beginning with our birth and for many years after, learning new things is a necessity to survive and be part of modern society. As we get older, though, we reach a point when learning becomes optional. We no longer need to learn new things to survive. Some use the excuse that they can’t learn anymore because they’re old. It’s not true, of course, but it still gets used as an excuse. And some simply lack the motivation to expend the energy required to learn new things. Older people should stress in job interviews that they have the desire to keep learning new things, and in fact they should give examples of new things they’ve learned recently and adopted as parts of their daily lives.

How to Create a Template for Reaching Out to Passive Candidates

How to Create a Template for Reaching Out to Passive Candidates There are so many different ways we can approach passive candidates now-a-days. But, what about the initial outreach? Did you sound professional when you wrote that email? What about enthusiastic? Genuine? It’s tough to create an email that both captures the candidates attention while also being informative. Here are a few steps to help with that initial outreach… First thing complete a thorough intake with your hiring managers to understand the role. What’s next? Well, trying to figure out what would make the candidate want your job can be tough [working on cool stuff won’t cut it]. Tip: Allow the hiring manager to reiterate what makes the job cool [ask for details] this will allow you [the recruiter] to create a more customized template that will hopefully support a higher response rate. Next choose your social platform of choice to source [i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Slack, Instagram]. I’d recommend creating a pipeline of candidates for your hiring manager(s) to review before reaching out to specific candidates. Why? Creating a pipeline will allow hiring manager(s) to sift through candidates that have the right skill-set [a bit time-consuming yes, but optimizes collaboration between recruiters and hiring managers]. Recruiters can create pipeline(s) in their company’s ATS system recruiters can also leverage online applications like Clockwork or LinkedIn Projects which allow hiring managers to seamlessly review candidates and provide their stamp of approval before reaching out. Now what? It pays off to be a little creative when you’re reaching out to candidates via social by creative I mean shifting the attention away from the “opportunity” and focusing on the candidate. Recently one of my hiring managers offered this note: The candidate’s music background would fit in well here! How did I use it? Toward the end of my email I mentioned: “Sam mentioned your music background would fit in well with the team :)” This is simple but creative addition shows candidates that we [recruiters] aren’t sending out robot responses. But wait… What about the introduction part? I think us recruiters’ expect candidates to be receptive to our emails because we have a job opportunity but we also know that the candidate(s) we are reaching out to can be passive so it’s probably a good idea to introduce who you are and why you’re reaching out [remember we [recruiters] are pretty much strangers]. Here is an example: Hi Sam, Quick intro, Hi I’m Angela, Recruiting Manager with Recruiting Social I’m supporting XYC with their technical hiring in Vancouver, BC. Max Smith, Manager of DevOps at XYC and I wanted to reach out to you on a role we are working on together: Junior DevOps you’d have the opportunity to be responsible for improving the overall infrastructure of XYC servers. I’d also recommend including details like: “This position also works closely with engineering, project management, operational, and engineering peers to develop innovative technical tools and solutions.” Again, simple but to the point. Tip: Sometimes we [recruiters] tend to avoid overly informative emails in our initial outreach; however, from my experience -the more informative and transparent I am the higher response rate. Tip: Including your hiring manager in the message will also allow the potential candidate to learn that you both are working as a team and have a vested interest in the candidate as well. Last but not least While it might be seemingly obvious to include a date/time of when you [the recruiter] are available to chat I’ve seen a few emails that don’t include this. Providing dates/times serves an important purpose you are providing a call to action. Check out free email schedulers that allow candidates to pick and choose dates/times that work  best for them or even including specific times/day in your outreach is better than not providing anything at all. Image: Pablo

9 Subjects Business Schools Should Teach (But They Dont)

9 Subjects Business Schools Should Teach (But They Don't) The gap between school teachings and what is REALLY needed for organizations to thrive and survive in the new markets that are unfolding is WIDE and is getting WIDER.Approaching CHASM proportions in fact.As an executive leader, I made it a priority to engage with business students and graduates on a regular basis. I needed to know where the talent was; who I should keep my eyes on for employment.evalBased on my experience, my conclusion is thatgraduates aren’t ready!Straight out of school they are ill-prepared to add the value required to enable our organizations to be remarkable, compelling, indispensable and unforgettable.They are not being taught enough of the “right stuff”.They are getting traditional pedagogy jammed down their throats by professors who have limited, if no, practical experience running a business in the real world.Photo Credit â€" Pexels.comThese principles MUST be espoused by business schoolsif graduates are to be relevant to business in today’s markets. 1. Execution is the keyto winningevalA business plan without flawless execution is worthless. It’s one thing to define WHAT has to be done, but without a detailed implementation plan and accountability, nothing happens and strategic intent remains a dream.2. Customer learning is a competitive advantageWe need more than periodic market research to keep pace with how customers are changing; we require acontinuous process of “going deep” to monitor minute by minute what people desire.evalOrganizations today succeed by providing what makes people happy; what they want, covet and “lust for” in their lives. Satisfying what they “need” is no longer a recipe for sustainable competitive advantage.3. Serve people don’t service themYou service computers; you SERVE people.Amazing and remarkable organizations put the customer ahead of themselves; they exist to SERVE others.They build operations system to make engagement easy; they create policies and procedures that enable transa ctions not control customer behaviour.4. Perfect solutions don’t existThe business world is too complex to be “formularized”. Flawed solutions that excite people beat those that may be theoretically pristine but don’t meet the practical realities of the specific organization and the market it serves. Imperfection rules andbe imperfect fastis the guiding mantra.evalThe more failures with a heathy dose of learning from them = more successes. Punish failure ONLY if you want compliance, policy-pushers and order takers.5. The frontline is the bossevalPeople who control the customer experienceare the really important people, not the executives. Build your hierarchy to serve them.6. Screw-ups can create customer loyaltyAsuccessful WOW! service recovery from an OOPS! results in a more loyal customer than if the screw-up never happened.Andwhen someone is screwed over,“I’m sorry” is THE most strategic phrase ever and is the heart of a mind-blowing service recovery.7. Erect barri ers to customer exitIgnore the competition and creating barriers to competitive entry. You can’t control the competition; if they want to attack you they will. The right strategy is toprevent customers from LEAVINGand you won’t have to worry about the hordes entering.8. Lose a sale Build a business curricula around these subjects;old school teaching gets a failing grade.

Book review Joy, Inc by Rich Sheridan - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Book review Joy, Inc by Rich Sheridan - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love by Rich Sheridan came out December 26 and its the single best business book I have read in a long while. Menlo is a software design and development company in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They have built a culture that removes the fear and ambiguity that traditionally makes a workplace miserable and made joy their explicit goal. I have recently had a chance to spend a day at Menlo talking to their founders and their people and I can say with confidence that they are an amazing workplace with a remarkable energy. How would you like to work at a company where: Theyve eliminated meetings Theyve eliminated internal email Employees can bring dogs and babies to work You work a 40-hour work week Finances and salaries are transparent You get to constantly learn from and with your co-workers Ive previously written about Menlo on this blog especially about their hiring process which is radically different from other companies. This book is a pleasure to read and has a great story that will pull you right in but it is, above all, incredibly useful. Sheridan clearly lays out the many innovative and effective things theyve done to create a happy workplace and most of them could without a doubt be translated into any kind of workplace. You will read this book with a smile on your face and go Of course that makes perfect sense! Why isnt every workplace doing this? Related Extreme hiring at Menlo Innovations My interview with Rich Sheridan 10 seeeeeeeriously cool workplaces Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

An argument against In The Name of Love (or, why I wanna encourage you to Do What You Love) - When I Grow Up

An argument against In The Name of Love (or, why I wanna encourage you to Do What You Love) - When I Grow Up Do What You Love poster set by The Ink Society A poster set like the one above set it all off. When I finally got around to reading the article In the Name of Love, I knew why I put off clicking on it the first dozen times it came around on my Facebook and Twitter feeds. The sub-title of the article states, Elites embrace the “do what you love” mantra. But it devalues work and hurts workers. And thats the gist of the opinion that was shared here. (Do What You Love) is a secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment.  According to this way of thinking, labor is not something one does for compensation but is an act of love. If profit doesn’t happen to follow, presumably it is because the worker’s passion and determination were insufficient. Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace. Of course, as a career coach whose main goal in life is to help creative women discover achieve their passionate careers (my tagline is I wanna love what I do, after all) and as someone who went through this process myself (from pursuing an acting career and then finding pursuing my next passion, life and career coaching) I felt attacked. The author goes on to call those following and heading the Do What You Love call as narcissistic, privileged, and anti-worker. But heres the thing: Doing What You Love and encouraging others to do the same does not mean you dont acknowledge, care, or look down on those with unglamorous work. I remember working as an apartment show-er (not shower!) in a luxury building in the Financial District back in 00. I leased apartments to 22 year olds (same age as me back then) whose finance jobs right outta college gave them 6 figure salaries. I was making $100/day. Was I envious of the money they were making? Sure! Did I ever for a second want their jobs on Wall Street? Hell no! The apartment show-er job for me was a dream job, in a way. It allowed me to make $12.50/hr (well above minimum wage), pick the 3-4 days each work I wanted to work around auditions I had lined up,  utilize my communication and interpersonal skills, and not wait tables (which was torturous to me personally). That is what was important to me at the time, and allowed me to pursue my ultimate dream job: being a musical theater performer. Did the finance people and NYU students and celebrities who I helped lease apartments to look down on me? Was I less than them because my paycheck, responsibilities, and dreams were different than theirs? I have no idea, actually. As my role model Judge Judy says, that would require me to look into the inner working of their mind, and I couldnt do that. Thankfully, I cant remember an incident where I was made to feel stupid by anyone I was working with or for in regards to my menial job or my stupid and unrealistic dream of being an actor. I think the key is not assuming that a dream job for you is a dream job for anyone else.   Just because you cant stand working in an office doesnt mean that your brother cant. Just because you ultimately wanna work for yourself doesnt mean that your colleague does. Just because you want to open your own shop doesnt mean that your bestie dreams of it. So please, for the love of all thats holy, find out what it is thatll allow you to Do What You Love and go do it. Loving what you do is the surefire way to enjoy the time you spend on this planet, both working (the 86,000 hours of it!) and playing. But along the way,  be kind  and generous to those whose dreams (and values! and priorities! and education! and skill set! and passions! and interests! and family situation!) are different than yours. I can bottom-line this by quoting  my 10 months ago self,  If you don’t care about what you’re doing,  then you’re not gonna be happy.  Case closed. Thatll allow us all to Do What We Love as well as Love What We Do and each other. Did you agree with that article? Are you following the Do What You Love mantra? Id love to know in the comments!