[POLL] Who Wrote Your Resume

[POLL] Who Wrote Your Resume 11 Is a new trend about to emerge? Vote now: Who wrote your resume? You did it alone (86%, 173 Votes) Someone else (mostly) (8%, 17 Votes) A professional resume writer (5%, 11 Votes) Started: May 14, 2010 @ 10:00 amTotal Voters: 201 My own case In my post-army service French job search of 1999, sending out 15 resumes resulted in 7 replies the next day, so I was more than satisfied with the quality of that resume. In my Internet Crash-era job search in Israel of 2001-2002, I sent out dozens of resumes and only received a handful of rejections replies- not very impressive at all. When I followed up, companies and recruiters confirmed what the media was saying- no one was hiring. Still, if I had done a better job searching for leads and targeting them, I could have found better job offers than the 2 in 8 months that I turned down. Applying the lesson learned, during my last search for a job Israel in 2006, I was much more careful about how, how many and to whom my resumes were sent out. As a result, like in 1999, my rate of returns was much higher.eval Although I had a lot of help from friends and family with translating my resumes from English to native-sounding French and Hebrew, I have always written them on my own. That worked fine twice, but I sure could have used expert help the other time to bring up my response rate. What about you? Who's writing your resumes? Vote now.eval

7 Red Flags That Indicate Your Employee is About to Leave!

7 Red Flags That Indicate Your Employee is About to Leave! You put in really hard efforts to hire employees; you invest your time, money and energy to acquire the best of talent in your organisation. No doubt, you want it to stay longer and become a building block in company’s success. With the changing corporate dynamics, same efforts need to be put in retaining talent and holding onto potential employees. How can you improve it? Making your employees more engaged and satisfied will certainly help. But what will you do to achieve that? There is apparently no ideal organisation where entire workforce is happy, satisfied and committed. Some spoilt brats are always there spoiling others, or some victims are always suffering in certain corner of the organization. You definitely need to find out the ones that will place you at higher horizons and can be the future organisational pillars. But, more than that, you need to recognize the ones that are about to say goodbye to you. Probably a warning bell or a pre-alarm might help you spot the individuals who are planning to leave making you look here and there to fill vacant positions. There are certain indicators that can help you with these. Through a number of surveys, here are the consolidated 7 indicators that indicate that an employee is about to leave you and you need to look into the matter right now! 1) Casual Work Attitude Once a thumbs up employee suddenly starts exhibiting a sloppy attitude towards work. One, who never missed deadlines and worked with complete responsibility and dedication, now starts missing deadlines. Moreover, the quality is also compromised at certain places. Or a die-hard punctual person now starts coming in late or leaving early. If these things happen occasionally, deadline slip-up or getting late due to genuine reason mean nothing, but if it starts on a continual basis, then it’s a matter of concern! These are the clear symptoms that either the individual is tired of routine tasks or is completely disengaged from the company. You must take time out and try to figure out where the problem is! 2) Frequent Day-off Requests If a usually regular guy starts asking for random day-offs, or remains out of office with no prior intimidation, you must start worrying as something is cooking up in his mind. Odd day-off request might be coming as the employee doesn’t want to get any paid leave remaining since he’ll be leaving in a few days. This is the most common indicator that one of your desks is going to be vacant soon! 3) Sudden Formal Attire It’s strange to see a usually casually dressed individual in strict formal attire. An employee is definitely about to quit if he starts dressing formally for office few times a week. There can be two things: either the employee just opened a new suitcase of formals, or he wants to bring in a change. Now it’s your experience and intellect to detect what level of change such employees are trying to bring in. If the day-off requests and formal attire are coming in jointly, wake up and start looking for a back-up plan! 4) Unexpected Personality Change This is a serious sign, if a happy-go-lucky employee suddenly starts complaining about each and every thing at office, politics, working style, working conditions, co-workers, etc. Either he is frustrated with his own job or is trying to influence others and spoil office culture since he’ll be leaving in a few days. 5) Segregation If one of your employees starts moving into his nutshell, detaching himself from others, he is up to something! Taking personal calls, taking more rounds of calling area, spending time alone These are the red flags seeking serious attention. These employees might be taking calls from recruiters, or contacting friends to find other job for them. 6) New Life Events You must take more interest in employees who are undergoing some serious life events such as marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, child birth, sudden illness, anything! As during such situations, an individual’s state of mind is completely volatile and he needs a proper guidance or consulting to take right decisions. In case you fail to do so, be prepared for any sudden vacancy. 7) Minimal Interaction with Colleagues This is probably the danger sign! When your employee starts disengaging him or starts maintaining distance, he has definitely find a new destination and doesn’t feel the need to cater personal or work relationships at current workplace. Or if a normally outspoken employee starts being unexpectedly silent during meetings, its time you must get into the matter and find out what’s wrong! These are the major danger signs that clearly indicate that something is wrong with particular employee, and you need to roll up your sleeves to handle the situation smartly. It depends on how cleverly you spot the pain point and convince the employee to stay back or in case he has already find something better, how proactively you design your back-up plan! Bio: Prateek Sharma is the Director at TrogonSoft, a company applying product development technologies and devising innovative technology products. Their  product, TeamWise, an HRMS Payroll Software enables companies to streamline and automate all their routine employee-related tasks with utter precision and accuracy.

Not Sure What to Do 10 Ways to Start a Conversation!

Not Sure What to Do 10 Ways to Start a Conversation! I spend a good bit of time in airports and on planes. I’m a cocoon traveler. I bury in a good read or put headphones on signaling I’m not interested in striking up a conversation. However, there’s always a person who breaks through the barrier and we generally have an interesting conversation. Recently it was a business executive heading to Denver. He told me about his son, a history major and graduating senior. He then asked the inevitable question, “What does a history major do for a career?” When near-strangers ask that question this is what I tell them. Conduct informational interviews. When you are undecided about what you want to do, initiate conversations with professionals in areas of interest to you. Get them to share their experience, ideas, information and advice that can be helpful to you. An informational interview is not a job interview, and the purpose is not to discuss a possible job. You are talking with people to learn something, to takeaway information and if can build a rapport, to find other people you can talk with and learn from. An informational interview can help direct your job search activities because get answers to your questions and gain perspective to help in your decision-making process. If you haven’t been landing job interviews in the career field or companies you’re interested in, an informational interview helps you gain insights into an industry, its entry-level position titles and job descriptions, companies in that field and the interviewing process. It can set up an opportunity for you to establish a relationship with professionals in your career field that could lead to a potential job offer down the road. And, informational interviews can help you feel better prepared and more confident in your job search and interviews. People want to help; they just need to know how. It can be challenging to reach busy professionals but once you do, don’t waste their time. Preparation is essential. Here’s a script you can use to get the other person talking. It also helps you get over feeling awkward talking with people about their work when you don’t know and you come across as a professional. 1. How did you get started and what do you think has made you successful in your career? This gets people talking about themselves and will provide you with insights about how you can get started and what you will need to do to be successful in that field. 2. How have other people you know gotten started in this industry? You will learn how people get their start in the industry to help you create your job search plan. You might also pick up a few names to follow up on. 3. What are the pros and cons of working in this field? You will begin to understand if the industry is a good fit for you. 4. What skills or experiences do employers in this industry look for in candidates? This will help you understand how you can position yourself to employers in the field, and provides a way to evaluate your resumé and other job marketing materials. 5. If you were me, what would you do to try to break into this field? This will get the person to tell you what you could be doing to find a job in the field at this time. It’s possible that this person will provide you with other contacts in the field. 6. How do you suggest I say on top of industry news? Are there publications, professional associations, or events I should check out? This will direct you to other valuable resources. 7. Do you know anyone else I can speak to for advice about breaking into this field? This builds your network even further and may lead to additional insights. 8. Can you take a quick glance at my resumé and give me your feedback? This is a way of reminding the person you want to find a job in the field, and you might get some ideas on how to improve your resumé. It’s also a great way to maintain contact with this person. 9. If I have additional questions in the future, can I reach out to you again? This is networking! This keeps the door open for future advice. 10. Is there anything I can do to help you? This is networking as well. Always look for ways to return the favor when someone has helped you. And of course, after each conversation ask, “May I connect with you on LinkedIn?” Remember, you get out of an informational interview what you put into it. Don’t expect any handouts, but do expect that if you put the work in, to reap the rewards.