If you’ve ever hired anyone for a job, you understand a whole new perspective on what makes an applicant stand out—and what makes you toss an application to the bin. Fair or not, blogger, consultant, and hirer Charlie Balmer discusses honestly the mistakes that can ruin your chances with a potential employer.

Managing your boss is not as difficult as it may seem and ‘managing upwards’ has become an accepted term in today’s corporate workplace. No matter what your position in a company, you need to be able to communicate well with your superior and focus on the things that matter to him or her. This is essential to career development success, as well as ensuring that your working relationships are effective.

Whether your boss is easy or difficult to engage with, here are some tips that should help you to manage upwards:

• Understand your boss’ objectives and how they fit into the company’s overall goals. Don’t be afraid to be inquisitive and ask questions about these.
• If your boss isn’t in overall control of the company, but in turn has a superior, try to find out what this higher-up’s priorities are, so that you can understand what motivates your boss, what puts them under pressure, and what drives their objectives.
• Keep your boss informed about details of day to day issues. He or she may not be close to these and could rely on you for crucial information but be conscious of how much information he or she actually needs.
• Don’t ask your boss to give detailed guidance on absolutely everything. It’s a manager’s role to make decisions, but if you come up with options to choose between, it saves time and reflects well on you.
• When presenting ideas, ask yourself how these will improve the company’s bottom line and how they fit in with your manager’s objectives. If they don’t match up, then reconsider and adjust them until they’re a good fit.
• Suggest how being given various tasks may affect your overall workload, and then establish what the priorities are. Ask which projects need to be completed first and give an honest appraisal of expectations. For example: “We could definitely get this done by Friday, but that will mean that completing the other project slips to next week. Which one is most important to complete first?”
• If you bring your boss a problem, bring a set of solutions too. Avoid consulting your boss about a problem if you haven’t spent time thinking of ways to resolve it.
• Come up with solutions that you can implement yourself and ask for the authority to go ahead with one or more of them.
• Co-operate with colleagues at the same level as you, or below, to work on solutions to problems or suggest ways to achieve the company’s and your boss’ goals.
• It’s also a good idea to find out about their pet hates and what he or she considers unacceptable. Whether it’s being late, poor spelling in emails or bad language in the workplace, make an effort to avoid these.

The key to upward management is that it should be based on making sensible suggestions for ways to resolve issues, and understanding when it’s important for your boss to make decisions.

Adrian Treacy is Director of technology, finance and healthcare recruiter Arrows Group: www.arrowsgroup.com

It’s always better to be prepared than surprised.

By definition, being strategic requires that you look forward — identifying trends, opportunities, and threats. With the December lull looming, now is a great time to plan for the future. I’ve listed the “top 10 talent management trends” I foresee that require your attention.

But you should certainly do your own thinking. I recommend that you start by examining this past year…

by Dr. John Sullivan

2011 Was The Year of Social Media

2011 was a tough year for many in talent management, but despite compressed budgets, organizations continued to hire and develop talent. One factor that seemed to invade nearly every high-level functional discussion was social media. It’s clear that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter will play a dominate role in recruiting and development best practices in years to come.

Not surprisingly, 2011 saw no fewer than 40 new vendors emerge to help organizations use social media to attract referrals. We also started to see early stage tools to use social media in talent assessment (pre/post hire) as well as applicant/candidate/employee experience management. New tools brought much enhanced visibility into talent issues, but most talent-management metrics continue not to resonate with key leaders outside of the HR function.

2012 Will Be “The Year of the Mobile Platform”

By the end of next year, even the skeptics will have to admit that the mobile platform will have become the dominant communications and interaction platform by early-adopting best-practice organizations. The capabilities afforded users of smartphones and tablet devices grows immensely day by day. Long before unified inboxes existed for the desktop, smart device users could see all incoming e-mail, social messaging, text messaging, and voice and video messaging in a single place.

Tablets will become the virtual classroom, and an emerging class of tools will let employees manage almost every aspect of their professional life digitally. During the next year, talent management leaders need to invest heavily supporting execution of talent management initiatives across mobile.

The Additional Top Nine!

Intense hiring competition will return in selected areas — global economic issues will persist for years to come, but the global war for talent will continue spiking in key regions an industries. While growth has slowed somewhat in China, Australia and Southeast Asia — including India — continue to see dramatic demand for skilled talent. In the U.S. and Europe, demand is still largely limited to certain industries where skills shortages have been an issue for years.

In high tech inclusive of medical technologies, 2012 will see a significant escalation in the war for top talent. As innovators and game changers step out of established tech firms like Facebook, Apple, Google, Twitter, and Zynga, a whole new breed to tech startups will be born each vying for the best of the best. While recruiting will move forward at a breathtaking pace, so too will “rapid” leadership development.

Retention issues will increase dramatically — almost every survey shows that despite high engagement scores, more than a majority of employees are willing to quit their current job as soon as a better opportunity comes along. I am predicting that turnover rates in high-demand occupations will increase by 25% during the next year and because most corporate retention programs have been so severely degraded, retention could turn out to be the highest-economic-impact area in all of talent management.

Rather than the traditional “one-size-fits-all” retention strategy, a targeted personalized approach will be required if you expect to have a reasonable chance to retain your top talent.

Social media increases its impact by becoming more data-driven — most firms jumped on the social media bandwagon, but unfortunately the trial-and-error approach used by most has produced only mediocre results. Adapting social media tools from the business coupled with strong analytics will allow a more focused approach that harnesses and directs the effort of all employees on social media. Talent leaders will increasingly see the value of a combination of internal and external social media approaches for managing and developing talent.

Remote work changes everything in talent management — the continued growth of technology, social media, and easy communications now makes it possible for most knowledge work and team activities to occur remotely. Allowing top talent to work “wherever they want to work” improves retention and makes recruiting dramatically easier.

Unfortunately, even though it is now possible for as much as 50% of a firm’s jobs to be done remotely, manager and HR resistance has limited the trend. Fortunately, managers and talent management leaders have begun to realize that teamwork, learning, development, recruiting, and best-practice sharing can now successfully be accomplished using remote methods. Firms like IBM and Cisco have led the way in reducing and eliminating barriers to remote work.

The need for speed shifts the balance between development and recruiting — historically, best practice within corporations has been to build and develop primarily from within. However, as the speed of change in business continues to increase and the number of firms that copy the “Apple model” (where firm is continually crossing industry boundaries) increases, talent managers will need to rethink the “develop internally first” approach.

In many cases, recruiting becomes a more viable option because there simply isn’t time for current employees to develop completely new skills. As a result, the trend will be to continually shift the balance toward recruiting for immediate needs and the use of contingent labor for short-duration opportunities and problems.

Employee referrals are coupled with social media — the employee referral program in many organizations is operated in isolation as are the organizations’ social media efforts, but talent managers are beginning to realize that the real strength of social media is relationship-building by your employees.

With proper coordination, employee relationships can easily be turned into employee referrals. This realization will lead to a shift away from recruiters and toward relying on employees to build social media contacts and relationships. The net result will be that as many as 60% of all hires will come from the combined efforts. The strength of these relationships will lead to better assessment and the highest-quality hires from employee referrals.

Employer branding returns — Employer branding and building talent communities are the only long-term strategies in recruiting. True branding is rarely practiced (hint: it’s not recruitment marketing) especially in the cash-strapped function of today, but years of layoffs, cuts in compensation, and generally bad press for business in general may force firms to invest in true branding. The increased use of social media and frequent visits to employee criticism sites (like Glassdoor.com), make not managing employer brand perception a risky proposition. While corporations will never control their employer brand, they can monitor and influence in a direction that isn’t catastrophic to recruiting and retention.

The candidate experience is finally getting the attention it deserves — Organizations have never treated candidates as well as they did their customers, but the high jobless rate has allowed corporations to essentially abuse some applicants. As competition for talent increases and as more applicants visit employer criticism sites like Glassdoor.com, talent leaders will be forced to modify their approach.

At the very least, firms will more closely monitor candidate experience metrics as they realize that treating applicants poorly can not only drive away other high-quality applicants but it can also lose them sales and customers.

Forward-looking metrics begin to dominate — Almost all current talent management and recruiting metrics are backward looking, in that they tell you what happened in the past. Other business functions like supply chain, production, and finance have long championed the use of “forward-looking” or predictive metrics and the time is finally coming when talent management leaders will shift their metrics emphasis. Forward-looking metrics can not only improve decision-making but they can also help to prevent or mitigate future talent problems.

Other Things to Keep Your Eye On…

In addition to the major trends highlighted above, there are 12 additional “hot” topics to keep your eye on:

• Risk identification — almost every other business function has already adopted a risk management strategy. So the time is coming when talent management will be forced to adopt a similar strategy and set of metrics. This program will not only cover HR legal issues but also the economic “risk” associated with weak hiring, the absence of developed leaders, and the cost of turnover of key talent.
• Prioritization — continued budget and resource pressure will force talent management leaders to prioritize their services, business units, key jobs, and high-value managers/employees.
• Integration — there will be increasing pressure for talent management functions to more closely integrate and work seamlessly.
• Expedited leadership development — as more baby-boom leaders and managers actually begin to retire, there will be increased pressure for expedited leadership development — specifically solutions that develop talent remotely using social media tools and within months rather than years.
• Competitive analysis — the increasingly competitive business world has forced almost every function to be more externally focused. Although HR has a long history of being internally focused and not being “highly competitive,” there is increasing pressure to become more business-like and to adopt an “us-versus-them” perspective. That means conducting competitive analysis and making sure that every key talent management function produces superior results to those at competitors.
• Contingent workers — as continuous business volatility becomes the “new normal,” the increased use and the improved management of contingent workers will become essential for agility and flexibility.
• Unionization — there is a reasonable chance that actions by the NLRB will increase union power and make it easier for unions to gain acceptance at private employers.
• Recruiting at industry events — as industry events return to popularity, recruiting at them will again become an effective tool for recruiting top and diverse talent.
• Location software — talent managers will begin to realize that software that allows you to check-in and see who is within close geographic proximity has great value and many still unidentified uses.
• Hire before they do — most firms will restrict their hiring until the turnaround actually begins. However, your firm must have a talent pool or pipeline developed, so that you can hire immediately and capture the top talent right before your competitors realize the downturn is over.
• Assessment continues to improve — vendors, software, and tools continue to improve in this area that will become increasingly important.
• Increase your revenue impact — increased economic pressures will continue the trend of forcing all functions (including talent management) to convert their functional results into business impacts in dollars. Talent management will face increasing pressure to directly demonstrate how their hiring, retention, development, etc. is focused, so that it directly increases and maximizes corporate revenues.

Final Thoughts

A recent survey of CEOs rates talent management as the No. 1 area where CEOs expect dramatic change during the next year. Given this increased attention, it’s even more critical that talent management and recruiting leaders set aside time to conduct a SWOT assessment (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify where they are and where they need to be.

The “new” talent management leader must be more strategic, more proactive, and more business-like, and that means getting your entire staff to begin thinking about and planning for the game-changing events, trends, and opportunities that will occur during the next year. It’s time to realize the “but-we-are-overwhelmed-and-too-busy” excuse for not forecasting and planning is wearing thin.

Doesn't matter if they've been naughty or nice, send  them the right 

greeting. Spread some holiday cheer!

We are all planning our activities according to our priorities or our obligations at work. The essential of a good planning is to know how to manage the time effectively, in a way that can allow you to assume your professional responsibilities, to take care of your personal life and also maintain your health. Although there is no miraculous solution that can be valid to everyone, there are some basic principles that you can follow.

Knowing how to plan your work is the cornerstone of effective time management. But it is not enough just to make a well done schedule, you must also follow it. This means that you have to be prepared daily for all the things that can interfere in your professional or personal life. Same as new clothes, planning activities should fit you. You need to set some time margins as well, in case of emergencies.

Plan your work!

You are at the interview and the potential employer asks: `Do you have any questions for us?`
You say `YES!`

That`s the easy part of the interview. Always answer with ‘yes’. If you ask them questions you show them you are interested and not just that, you also have the chance to show them how well you know the domain in which you are willing to work. More importantly, it can differentiate you from other candidates.

Here are some questions you can ask in different stages of the interview:

The recruiter: first interviewer
It`s their job to identify the best candidates. Think of them as a generic character. They can answer to general questions about the department.
Here are some examples:
- How would you describe the company`s organizational culture?
- What kind of employees are the superstars in the company?
- Can you tell me more about the interview process?

The department manager: your future boss:
This is probably the person who will supervise you, if you get hired. He knows more about the job and its requirements. You should ask him specific questions about the work place, responsibilities and the future tasks.

Here are some questions you can ask:
- What are the most important qualities/assets a candidate should have for this particular job?
- How would you describe the ideal candidate?
- What are the career perspective for an employee in this position?

The manager/CEO: the most important person
If one of the company`s managers/CEOs is attending the interview, most likely he knows about the latest news/developments in the industry. You can also ask them specific questions about the job, but focus on asking about the future of the company and also the industry. It is your chance to show off your knowledge.

Here`s what you can ask:
- How do you see the industry in the next 5 years?
- What are your company`s advantages over the competition?
- What is your biggest challenge? How do you plan on overcoming it?

The colleague: speak frankly
Some interviews may also include a potential colleague – most likely to let you know how`s on the “inside”. Still, do not expect detailed information. And, don`t ask for it!

A few questions:
- How would you describe a typical day in the department?
- What can you say about the work environment in the company?
- What is the most pleasant part about your job? And the most difficult?

Good luck finding the right job for you!

Best,
CeeVee Team

What is the first step in getting a job, the interview?
No, it`s getting through to the person making the CV selection, the recruiter.

Recruiters are usually the first contact with a potential employer. And many times they decide if your CV will reach the HR manager`s desk or archive room. It is important to have an idea about what recruiters do, but must also know and what they do not. After all, you do not want an inappropriate request to ruin your chances of an interview. So avoid the four things that you should never expect from a recruiter.

Don`t be too friendly with them

Certainly, some recruiters are usually friendly and helpful. After all, their responsibility is to guide you through the recruiting process. But, they are professionals and it is crucial to remember that. Think of the recruiter as a well respected colleague and treat them accordingly. Be friendly, but not too familiar. It`s wiser to keep personal conversations, jokes and physical contact to a minimum. Don`t do/say anything that you wouldn’t do/say to your boss (or your mom).

Don`t expect career coaching

A recruiter`s objective is not to help you get a job, but to guide you through the recruitment process at a certain company. They are not professional career trainers. Don`t bother asking them for help in creating your cover letter or your CV, or how to plan your career. You can ask them about the company or the industry in general, try to ask questions related to the job you applied for. Save your best questions for the hiring manager, the person you have to impress the most.

Don`t ask for inside information

There is only one candidate for the job, that you have to worry about: YOU. Although it may be difficult, try not to ask questions about the other candidates. Usually, you won`t get an answer from the recruiters. And you asking specific details about your competition, may create an impression of uncertainty from your part. Still, you can ask questions about the recruitment process or about the job. Here are some examples of questions you can ask:
* Do you have anymore candidates scheduled for interview?
* How many candidates have applied until now?
* How would you describe the ideal candidate for this job?
* Is there something I can change/improve in order to be a better candidate?
The best way to remove competition? Make sure you are perceived as a competitive candidate.

Don`t ask for special treatment

Although you wish to be, you are not the only candidate for the job. And, although the recruiters are willing to help, their goal is not to be your advocate in front of the HR manager. Their goal is to find a person for the job. Don`t ever ask a recruiter to put in a good word for you. If they will consider you a good candidate, most likely they’ll do it by themselves.
Also, don`t ask them to send a message from you to the HR Manager. Instead of saying, `Tell him … it was nice meeting him`, you`d better send a thank you note. Speaking for yourself shows that you are capable, confident and conscientious.

Remember, if you give the proper respect to the recruiter, he will do the same to you.

Best,
CeeVee Team

When work becomes the sole reason of your existence, the only thing on your mind and the only thing that makes you happy, it`s time for a little intervention. A warning: `Work addiction is bad for your health`. To determine your level of `concentration` at work, we would like to suggest you take the following test, to which you will have to answer with `yes` or `no`.

1. You arrive early, stay late and do more than you are required
2. You rarely take days off or holidays
3. You don`t know how to delegate responsibilities
4. You are a perfectionist
5. You can not relax
6. You work at a fast pace and get angry when others do not work ‘hard’
7. You can not see things in perspective and you can not tell what is important
8. You can not define the boundary between work time and time for relaxation, work has taken over you
9. The relationship with family or friends is distant and cold
10. You think only of what you did at work
11.You lost your sense of humor
12. You are convinced that work is fun and that you can stop at any time, while others think you have to cut it down a bit
13. You tend to please your superiors
14. You are showing signs of impatience and hostility when you are dealing with your subordinates
15. You have no hobbies and no social life

If your answer is `yes` to 10-15 questions, you should start considering to what extent your life is governed by work, to prevent a deterioration of family relationships and your overall health.
If you answered `yes` to 3-9 questions don`t think you are out of the woods yet, because you tend to let work take over you. With little support and certain changes you can prevent negative effects.
If you answered `yes` to less than three questions, you’re not a workaholic. Maybe you work hard, but you did not become addicted. You don`t have to worry that your work style will affect you or others.

Best,
CeeVee Team

What determines people to change their job?

Whatever the reasons - professional dissatisfaction, a new challenge, unfriendly environment, low salary, conflicts etc. – the reality is that change is good, because it stimulates you and it distracts you from daily routine and the `habits` of the company you work(ed) for.

If you are planning a career change, you must be aware of the risks you are taken, because you know what you are giving up, but don`t know what you may find at the new job.

Although there are no strict methods to diminish the risk and the shock of change (because there are too many individual variables involved), there are some things you can take into consideration.

* Don`t act on impulse: it`s not rational to decide to change your job just because you had an argument with your boss or a colleague.

* Remember what was the starting point of your career, what are your skills and studies. The choice of a new job must be weighed with calm and you have to think of it as an opportunity to grow, both professionally and personally. If you rush it, you may overlook important details.

* Change your job only if you believe you have reached the highest peak and you can no longer evolve in your current position (for experienced employees) or that there is nothing else you can learn at your job (for the younger ones).

* Make your decision only after you have examined several offers, so that you have an overview of the work environment and the `market value` of your skills.

* Be determined! Once you have examined all the possibilities, do not hesitate: the choice is only one and it has to be right.

A good idea is also to think about the reasons behind your decision to leave your current job and the potential problems/difficulties that come with change.

———————————————-
Nowadays employees tend to be more flexible and broad-minded in their activity domain, gathering different skills from each job they have and, in time, becoming more `marketable`.

The possibility to observe/learn about new situations in different jobs stimulates the capacity to adapt, increase curiosity and passion for work, making them enthusiastic about new challenges and not afraid of failure.

Change does not equal instability, but turning yourself by 360 degrees to a world of opportunities.

Schimbarea nu e sinonim cu instabilitatea, ci cu deschiderea de 360 de grade spre lumea joburilor si evolutia sa. La mare cautare e disponibilitatea de a incerca lucruri noi, nu de a ramane legat de o singura firma.

Good luck in your change for the better!

Best,
CeeVee Team

Wanted salary … Every candidate thinks about it, but many don`t know how to determine it so it would reflect their true value and at the same time not to scare off employers.

Salary expectations vary, depending on different factors such as the company, the person, the experience and the activity domain. You have to do some research in order to give the right answer when asked `What about your salary expectations?`.

You can start by checking out the sites of professional organizations in your activity domain. Most of them have a special section on site or topics on their forums on the subject. Governmental sources are also helpful, especially national statistics. If these sources can`t help, you can check out business or financial magazines, or those specific to your area of expertise.

Current or former employees of the company you are applying to can also help. For example, you can ask if the first salary offer is usually a minimum limit, which is the hierarchy in the company and how well it reflects in terms of salary, which is the company`s position on professional training, etc. The answers you receive can help you when you will negotiate your salary. Also, don`t forget to check individual and collective bonuses, they can raise the salary as well.

Once you have an idea about the salary, all you have to do is `customize` the figure. Ask your friends` opinion or of people in the same domain as you, with similar background. Think about your personal financial needs and calculate a budget that would meet these needs.

Remember, salary is only a part of your career. Do not forget about your experience and knowledge you gained.

And the most important thing: never be embarrassed to express your salary expectations. You deserve it!

Best,
CeeVee Team