Why Developing Employees Starts with Developing HR

Why Developing Employees Starts with Developing HR We speak to David DSouza who is the  Director of Membership for the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development or CIPD. They are the professional body for HR and people development. They have almost 150,000 members and his job is to make sure that they are continually improving to make sure that they continue to grow â€" but just as important that people get value from being members. So we wanted to speak to him about why the role of an organization like CIPD is important in the HR world and how and why it can help develop not only your HR professionals but your employees too. Why should employers work with you and the CIPD? We do two key things that are important for organizations and people involved in trying to get the people bit of business right. We provide content â€" we are constantly researching and developing new content to help people do their job well and to better understand the changing landscape of work. We do some really interesting stuff â€" and part of our challenge is getting that work in the right hands â€" but if you work in recruitment our work on lessons from behavioral science (for instance) would be useful reading. Secondly, we also provide community â€" helping people to debate, explore, argue, enquire and get support and I think that’s increasingly important. Why should small businesses work with you? There are a number of reasons that small businesses would work with us and the most obvious is the range of support that we can offer. If you work in a small organization you often have to bridge multiple roles and we can offer support, materials across most of the employee lifecycle (that warmest of terms…) as well as access to a community of people facing similar challenges. We also offer things like free employment advice calls to our members which can be a really useful benefit for smaller organizations. Finally, as part of membership, you get online journal access which is a great way of keeping up to date with what is happening in the industry. What talent challenges is the industry faced with? There is a rapidly changing external environment but with some embedded and enduring challenges that haven’t shifted much since I started my career in volume recruiting in retail 15 years ago. There is a skills shortage in some areas and people being seen as disposable in others. Recruiting fairly at volume is a challenge as is maintaining a high quality of candidate experience â€" and I’d include giving developmental feedback as part of that. Fair and unbiased selection remains tricky and candidates expecting a more rapid response to queries complicates things further. There is lots of tech â€" working out the right tech is a high order puzzle. What are the most common mistakes you see recruiters make? One of the most common mistakes I see recruiters make (still…) is seeing attracting the volume of applications as some measure of success rather than the quality of those applications   It was a great campaign we attracted x applications per vacancy. It is an odd vanity metric that, for me, still distracts from the actual measure of success which is quality candidates that you would be happy to have in a role. How many people that completed an application process that you actually  didn’t  want to hire is primarily a measure of how scattergun your advertising is and how much time you are wasting? Whats the one piece of advice you give to HR departments? I give lots of advice to HR departments (sort of comes with the job), but I think that the one piece of advice that most would benefit from heeding is to work the recruitment process as hard as you can to get people that care about leading. Every single time you hire a poor leader you set your organization’s performance and capability back. Organisations still don’t test or even focus enough on that capability and the sense of obligation to lead. If you want to kill an organization over time just keep hiring people that focus on themselves rather than leading well. What hard lessons can you share with us? I think the hardest lesson I had to learn over time is that no matter how different disciplines would like to be known (talent, recruitment, HR, learning and development, OD) the employee has absolutely no interest whatsoever in those niceties. The employee wants a joined-up end-to-end experience from an organization that cares and the ego-driven conversations about who sits or what functions should be called will never change that. If you are genuinely focused on your people then your job is making the whole system point in the right direction â€" not just doing your bit and then sighing when things fall down further down the chain. What are your top 3 tips to recruiters? Don’t let fancy tech get in the way of actual thinking. I get that it’s like putting a complex puzzle together and I genuinely think that recruitment is leading the way with tech adoption when it comes to people in organizations, but keep focusing on the problems to be solved â€" not the solutions being sold. Don’t tell yourself that you are doing the diversity and inclusion bit well. Work out how you are going to measure that stuff to guarantee you know you are doing it well. Look after yourself. It’s one of the most demanding and, at times, tense jobs. Take the breaks you need. It’s a relay race of sprints adding up to a marathon â€" and that is tricky. What’s your tech stack? We are a professional body so we wouldn’t endorse any vendors above another. We love them all exactly equally. I couldn’t survive my day without Twitter, Flipboard and my Mate 10 Pro (long battery life). I don’t know how I’d survive if Linkedin wasn’t available to provide me with maths puzzles and inspiring stories of people paying for other people’s coffee with no desire of recognition for their actions beyond expecting thousands of likes. Who inspires you and why? I get inspired by elegant problem solvers. My approach in organizations I worked in was always to focus on what I used to call low cost/no cost solutions because it made my teams more creative. I love seeing organizations create workarounds or use different pieces of tech together to create different outcomes. I love lazy â€" if you are lazy you find the most efficient way Connect with David on LinkedIn.

How to Write a Consulting Resume

How to Write a Consulting ResumeYou can easily create your own consultant resume, but when you're not writing one of your own, you need to rely on the expert writers out there who are writing resumes for their clients. The problem is that most of these writing services charge you a hefty fee and then leave you without a resume.You are probably looking for a way around this trap but you're not going to find anything better than professional resume writers, who are trained to write your resume so that it is both impressive and professional. So, how do you get to hire one of these writers for yourself?Well, first of all, you need to ensure that your own consultant resume is formatted correctly. When you write a consultant resume, the goal is to get your chosen consultant noticed by potential employers. You have to make sure that it has all the right information in it.That means including your consultants' salaries, previous assignments, and previous employers. Do not forget to include a ny college degrees your consultant has received either as an associate or bachelor's degree. And, of course, make sure your consultant resume is legible!One of the best ways to ensure that your consultant resume is legible is to use the best fonts that are available. Make sure your fonts are capitalized and your font size is large enough to be readable. Never compromise on the clarity of your writing when writing a consultant resume.In addition to the look of your writing, make sure that your consultant resume has a professional feel to it. The reader needs to know that your consultant has the level of expertise needed in the position that they're applying for. Try to pick your words carefully so that you sound like an expert, and not like someone who's just applying for a job.When you are writing your own consultant resume, you can try to incorporate keywords into your job posting. For example, if you're looking for a management consultant, you can use keywords such as: strategic, strategic planning, senior management consulting, etc. These can help you land that job that you're seeking.In conclusion, when you're looking for a writer to write your consultant resume, make sure that you're sure that they're qualified to do the job. It's possible to hire a consultant without them charging you a fee.

Monday, Monday Why Doing What You Love Can Make Tomorrow Better Marla Gottschalk

Monday, Monday Why Doing What You Love Can Make Tomorrow Better Marla Gottschalk Do you spend Sundays ruminating about how youd like to avoid Mondays? According to Gallup, that transition wont be nearly as traumatic if you report feeling engaged with your work. We are all recognizing the power of employee engagement in organizations today and it seems this construct is likely related to a host of other relevant variables, including your mood. Gallup measured the progression of specific emotions during the course of   our work week with survey participants reporting their attitudes on a variety of topics including feelings of happiness, anger and stress. Not surprisingly, those who identified as not engaged or actively disengaged reported more negative responses, which subtly evolved during the course of a work week.   The data held some fascinating findings. Some examples: Happiness. There is an obvious difference in experiences of reported happiness where those with lower levels of engagement, were less likely to report it. (For some reason this discrepancy peaked on Tuesdays for those identified as actively disengaged.) Smiling and laughing. You guessed it! Those that reported feeling engaged at work, also reported smiling and laughing more. Just over 65% of actively disengaged respondents reported smiling and laughing a lot (on Tuesday), as compared to 90.7% of those reporting themselves as engaged. Stress. Although all respondents were more likely to report higher levels of stress on Monday, as compared to Sunday, those reporting lower levels of engagement seem to be more susceptible. (Reported stress dipped a bit on Fridays, for all respondents.) Anger. Those who reported feeling disengaged, were more likely to report feelings of anger. On Tuesdays, for example, more than one-quarter of those defined as actively disengaged reported experiences of anger the previous day, in comparison to 9.2% of those identified as engaged. Engagement is continuing to emerge as a key workplace challenge in the evolution of work   and more focus on this area will certainly follow. What helps you feel engaged at work? Tell us your story. Dr. Marla Gottschalk is a Workplace Psychologist and coach. Connect with her and continue the conversation on Twitter and Linkedin. _____

The Power of Saying No - Why You Should Say it More Often -

The Power of Saying No - Why You Should Say it More Often - Historically, I’ve always been a yes woman. I’ve said yes to a year abroad in Provence aged 19, yes to living in Madrid and Santiago in my 20s, yes to risk-taking, challenge and a life of new adventures that always promises more. And yet, it was only when I started my own business in my early 30s that I began to realize that the word no might be just as useful, too. On the face of it, no doesn’t have as much power as yes. It feels negative, perhaps a bit defeatist and seems to fly in the face of a stanchly can-do attitude that was drilled into many of us from an early age (“you can do anything you want to!”). Yet saying no, I have discovered, takes a lot more grit than saying yes. It’s also become my lifeblood in my day-to-day running of adventure travel firm Flash Pack. In the past five years, my co-founder Lee Thompson and I have grown the company from a tiny bedroom start-up to a multi-million dollar business with 300% year-on-year growth and trips in over 50 countries worldwide. As CEO, I simply couldn’t have managed that steep curve without saying no, often and with feeling. Here’s why you should, too: Your reputation is at stake in saying yes People say yes to things all the time at work, even when they’re overloaded, because they want to appear enthusiastic and willing. You’re a good team player if you simply “handle it” without argument, no matter what else you have on your plate. But here’s the killer: every time you take on something that you can’t quite manage, you risk doing a sloppier job. Research shows that multitasking is incredibly damaging for productivity: we simply aren’t made to flit between tasks without giving proper attention to anything. Added to this is simple physics: your time and energy are limited resources, and you can’t keep churning them out without some kind of negative throwback eventually surfacing in the quality of your work. The problem with that is, it’s your reputation that hangs in the balance. This is especially important if you’re a freelancer or running your own business, but it also holds true in paid employment. You take on said task to keep your boss happy, but people won’t judge her for the value of the work that results â€" that pleasure falls to you. So, the next time you agree to something you know deep down that you really don’t have time for, consider that you’ll be attaching your name to that project; however large or small. Is it worth gambling your reputation â€" the one element of your career trajectory you have full control over â€" on a less-than-brilliant outcome? Saying no gives your day more meaning   In their eye-opening book, Make Time, productivity experts Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky argue that we should cultivate a daily focus that answers the question, “what was the highlight of your day?” Falling somewhere between an incidental task and a grand ambition, this highlight is the one thing you want to protect and prioritize above all else. By taking this approach, the authors say, you find time for things that ordinarily fall by the wayside. This might include a project that isn’t urgent but that brings you deep satisfaction, for example learning to use a new piece of software. Or it might be something joyful, like a lunch with friends, that â€" even if you do find time to squeeze into your normal schedule â€" you don’t truly enjoy, because you’re skidding into it, with no real energy or focus. By saying no to things that don’t hold this meaning for you, you carve out the time for the things that do. And your days take on more of a memorable cadence because of it. Instead of passing time by default, in a frenetic blur of throwaway to-dos â€" most of which you’d struggle to recall by the end of the week â€" you become more discerning. You devote time to consciously held highlights, ones that will help you grow or become happier as a result. But you can only get there by first holding the line on other people’s tasks and to-dos. Saying yes can lead to chronic stress and burnout In the hyper-alert world we live in, the risk of burnout has never been higher. In the States alone, 57% feel paralyzed by the impact of stress. Saying yes all the time massively exacerbates this pressure. We’re collectively buckling under this enormous heft of obligations and commitments.  Consider the mission creep that comes with a typical task you say yes to. It may start as a favor but soon enough it becomes an assumption and then a full-on guarantee that you’ll struggle to untangle yourself from. How many times has this happened to you throughout the course of your work life? If you’re anything like me, it’ll be a lot. Saying no, then, is not only a useful means of asserting yourself â€" it’s also crucial to safeguarding your mental health. Just like going to bed early, or doing yoga at the weekends, laying down your boundaries is a habit you need to learn for your own wellbeing. In doing so, you transition smoothly from the demands and needs of other people to what YOU want to do (something that is astonishingly easy to dismiss). Research concludes that when people find meaning in their work, the risk of career burnout dramatically lowers. You’re less likely to feel drained when, instead of madly chasing your tail to keep everyone happy, you’re really engaged with what you’re doing. Saying no makes you the architect of your career happiness “Some people dream of success, while others work for it” is the kind of true-yet-grating motivational quote you’ll see all over Instagram. But it took me a long time to realize that this hard work isn’t merely graft; it’s also the ability to push back and have difficult conversations. Sure, you can sail through your career keeping everyone happy and agreeing to all projects that fall on your desk. But the danger is, you’ll look up in 10 years time and realize who you are and what you stand for has been completely eroded by a long string of obligations. Even in running my own company, where I get to call the shots, there have been moments where I could have said yes for an easy life. I could have agreed when I secretly didn’t, or gone along with an idea I considered unsound, for the sake of keeping the peace. But Flash Pack may have ended up in a completely different place because of that; one that compromised me and my values. Studies show that autonomy is the most important element of career satisfaction; we need to feel like we have influence over what we do at work. But this sense of direction won’t simply be handed to you on a plate; you have to engineer it or else other people will for you. Use your voice, take up space, say no when your gut tells you to. It’ll feel uncomfortable at first. Saying no gets easier We all have that ingrained people-pleasing instinct that can be tough to overcome. That’s OK â€" roll with it. Saying no is a bit like riding a bike. You’ll have a few scrapes along the way but the more you practice it, the better you’ll get. And gradually, you’ll tip that balance from the frustration of being told what to do, to the unhampered joy of a career where you’re in the driving seat. And that, my friends, is a key facet of lifetime happiness. Go forth and try it out.  This guest post was authored by Radha Vyas Radha Vyas is the Co-founder of Flash Pack, an award-winning travel company rehabilitating the outdated image of the group holiday. Flash Pack connects busy professionals travelling alone to enjoy extraordinary adventures together. Now with a global community of solo travelers and 300% YOY growth, Radha has seen her business flourish from a back-bedroom startup in 2014 to a thriving brand.  

What Are Three Guidelines When Writing a Resume?

What Are Three Guidelines When Writing a Resume?The main objective of writing a resume should be to list the qualifications you have that make you ideal for a job opening. There are three guidelines when writing a resume that you must adhere to.The first guideline is to list your qualifications exactly. If you don't write them down, you are going to get vague with your explanations and leave yourself out of consideration. Listing everything you can remember is not going to do you any good, just as listing them incorrectly could land you in trouble with a potential employer.The second guideline that you must adhere to when writing a resume is to write the resume in a clear and concise manner. The common mistake that people make is to repeat themselves over again. This is also a bad way to get the reader's attention, which is the main purpose of the resume.The third guideline is that you must write your resume in a manner that is readable. You don't want to create a document that only the grammar and sentence structure experts can read. You want to convey your message to the person who reads your resume. So, this means you should use language that will be easy for most readers to understand.These are all things that you need to know when writing a resume. As you move on through your career you will find that these principles apply to the education and training you receive. Remember that employers are looking for a bright, well rounded individual.Make your resume stand out from the rest. Use the guidelines mentioned above to ensure you are creating a document that will help you land the job. Write a resume that is concise, clear, and will be easy to read by any reader.Most employers spend time first reviewing resumes from those applying for career changes. You need to do whatever you can to impress the hiring manager. Whether you are seeking a promotion or a position that will open up a different job, you must be able to provide your best qualifications in order t o land that new job.Writing a resume is not easy, but it does not have to be impossible. There are some great guides available on the Internet that will walk you through the process of writing a resume. Be sure to review the guide before you begin to ensure that you understand how to structure your resume.

Resume Writing For Creatives

Resume Writing For CreativesResume writing for creatives should include a creative work history with specific information about your expertise in a field. It is also imperative that the resume include technical skills that are required in the job. The question now is what creative talents do I have to write my resume with?Creative talents need to be expressed in an effective and unique way. These creative talents are normally expressed through personal statements or personal testimonies. This is the most important part of the resume. Before you apply for any job you need to know your strengths and weaknesses as well as the qualifications of the position.One of the major areas where creative talents can be used is that of the cover letter. The cover letter should be able to communicate your skills to the hiring manager in a compelling and accurate manner. An effective cover letter will increase your chances of getting a good job interview. It will also prove that you are the right can didate for the job.Resume writing for creatives should also include a work history that includes details about previous jobs. This helps the hiring manager know your talent and style in dealing with other people. When applying for a job you are not expected to know everything. You have to learn from your mistakes and learn from your successes. If you do this you will be well on your way to getting the job.If you are applying for a job in a company and the company is looking for applicants it is a must that you write a cover letter. The application letter should express your skills in the job. To be able to convey your talents and skills clearly and effectively it is a must that you use professional resume writing for creatives.The strengths and weaknesses should be stated clearly so that you will be able to highlight your strong points. These should also be accompanied by the criteria that you must meet in order to be successful in the job. If you can talk about your strengths in a particular job then you can talk about your talents in another job.Creative talents need to be expressed and their value highlighted. This is the reason why a professional resume writing for creatives should be used. This type of resume writing is a necessity if you want to be hired as a creative. A creative resume needs to be able to capture the imagination of the potential employer.So if you are looking for a job as a creative, go ahead and write a resume that showcases your talent. This will not only help you in landing a job but will also help you develop and improve your talents. It is also imperative that you know what you need to be included in your resume.

92 Chris Ashmore - Audio Producer, BE Media - Jane Jackson Career

92 Chris Ashmore - Audio Producer, BE Media - Jane Jackson Career If you’re considering how to get into media production or international recruitment, this is the perfect podcast episode for you!Chris completed his Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Media Studies and joined Business Essentials in 1998 as a production assistant, soon becoming one of several producers.4 years later Chris left BE to embark on an adventure to the Land of the Rising Sun: that is, of course, Japan. He took a new career direction as a recruiter.His strong business development and relationship management skills soon saw him rise to Partner level of Japan-based recruiting firm, Optia Partners where Chris specialised in recruiting legal professionals for multinational companies, primarily in Tokyo, but as well as other Asian centres.Chris became the in-house legal head-hunter in Tokyo. He believes it’s because of his strong cross cultural understanding and Kuuki Yomenai (KY). What does this mean? Listen to our fascinating conversation and find out.After 10 years Chris returne d to Australia with his Japanese wife and their infant daughter. With nothing but fond memories of his time at BE and with the several core members of the team still there, followed his passion for media once again and now is Producer and Business Development Manager at BE Media.Chris interviews some of the best business experts in Australia for the high quality business magazine, Business Essentials and is an Australian Podcast   Awards judge.   Listen to his stories and how he made his successful transitions in this podcast episode.  WHERE TO FIND CHRIS:Website: www.be.com.auTwitter: @mrchrisashmore

Career Corner Creating Your Career Vision Board - Hallie Crawford

Career Corner Creating Your Career Vision Board Are you ready to start the process of identifying your ideal career path? A great first step is to create your Career Vision Board. (Click here for more information on how to do this). Next, in order to fine tune your vision, you’ll need to identify the components that will lead to an ideal career. The best way to do this is to answer the following questions: Interests: What do you enjoy doing in your free time? What do you read for pleasure? What are your hobbies? Which of these things would you be interested in pursuing as a career? Skills and Abilities: What do people come to you for help or advice on? In what areas do you excel that others don’t? Which of your natural talents do you enjoy using and would you like to use in a job? Fulfillment: What would give you a sense of fulfillment and reward in your job? How can you utilize your skills and abilities in a way that would be meaningful to you? Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll have a head start on identifying your dream career. To dive in further and get specific answers to these questions, feel free to contact me for a Jumpstart Your Career Coaching Session. I’m here to help. Life Purpose Coach