Small Talk Is an Overrated Way to Build Relationships with Your Employees

The relationships that you form with each of your direct reports are central to your ability to fulfill your three core responsibilities as a manager: Create a culture of feedback, build a cohesive team, and achieve results collaboratively. But these relationships do not follow the rules of other relationships in our lives; they require a careful balancing act. You need to care personally, without getting creepily personal or trying to be a “popular leader.” You need to challenge people directly and tell them when their work isn’t good enough, without being a jerk or creating a vicious cycle of discouragement and failure. That’s a hard thing to do.

When you can care personally at the same time that you challenge directly, you’re on the way to successful leadership. The term I use to describe a good manager–direct report relationship, and this ability to care and challenge simultaneously, is radical candor. So what can you do to build radically candid relationships with each of your direct reports? And what are the pitfalls to avoid?

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10 Fantastic Recruitment and HR Blogs You Should Be Reading

HR-Recruitment

Every recruiter has to keep themselves updated with the latest information in the recruitment industry. We’ve searched the web for the 10 best blogs for the HR and Recruiting industry.Take some time to subscribe the blogs.

1. ERE

Web: www.eremedia.com/ere/

ERE was created in 1998 as an online gathering place for recruiters. It was designed as a destination where the community could network, share best practices, and learn from each other.

Fast forward to today, ERE Media has become the go-to information and conference source for human resources, talent acquisition, and recruiting professionals. We have built our publications and conferences around three core brands and audiences to cater to their specific needs.

2. Greg Savage

Web: www.gregsavage.com.au/

Over a career spanning thirty-five years, Greg is a respected voice across the global recruitment industry and is a regular keynote speaker at staffing conferences around the world.

3. Fistful of Talent

Web: www.fistfuloftalent.com/

Fistful of Talent is a group of pros from Recruiting practices, HR shops and Consulting firms across the nation. The center of the conversation is talent – which includes recruiting as well as everything you do with the talent once it’s in the door.

4. Undercover Recruiter

Web: www.theundercoverrecruiter.com/

This blog has less of a pure recruiting and HR focus, and blends jobseeker-specific content with tips for recruiters and hiring managers. Overall, it gives a good perspective into both sides of the current employer/employee market.

5. Indeed Blog

Web: www.blog.indeed.com/

More people find jobs on Indeed than anywhere else. This is Indeed blog, where they share data trends and insights, tips for employers, product updates and best practices.

6. Matt Charney

Web: www.mattcharney.com

Matt Charney is probably the world’s top expert when it comes to talent and technology. If you want to know what’s cool, what’s new or what’s next in recruiting, all you have to do is ask Matt.

7. Recruiter

Web: https://www.recruiter.com/recruiting-tips.html

Find recruiting tips and recruiting strategies to help you be a better recruiter, make more placements, stay on top of recruiting technology trends,and stay motivated. Learn about recruiting industry trends and best practices for both corporate and agency recruiters.

8. Staffing Talk

Web: http://staffingtalk.com/

Staffing Talk is a website that is focused on the Staffing Industry. From news, opinions, personal stories, events, contests and other opportunities to get involved, we look forward to hearing from you! If you are in the staffing industry, Staffing Talk is for you!

9.RecruitingBlogs

Web: http://www.recruitingblogs.com/

RecruitingBlogs is the #1 online media resource for today’s recruiting world, offering a signature mix of content, news, webinars, podcasts, videos, eBooks, white papers and events that develop professional best practices.

10. BoleanStrings

Web: http://booleanblackbelt.com/

Glen Cathey created this blog to share his obsession with talent attraction, engagement and acquisition.

7 Behaviors of Successful People

Why just admire successful people when you could be successful yourself? Success isn’t all about luck. It’s about focus, determination, optimism and hard work. Changing your mindset and behaviors can be tricky at first, but the payoff — quite literally — is worth the extra effort. Below are seven specific behaviors that successful people practice in their daily lives. Continue reading…

Hiring the Right Talent

In the volatile market situations, it is quite difficult to predict what attributes and qualifications of the candidate would be required six months or one year down the line. In such volatile work scenarios, there is constant fragmenting, reorganizing and reconceptualization of the market. This makes hiring the right candidate for any given requirement quite challenging as companies need to ensure that the candidate has right attributes to adapt to the constant change within and outside the organisation. The work environment requires candidates to be rapid, flexible, and quick learners. The job demands them to be adaptable, and have broad knowledge in different business fields.

To gauge the strengths and competitiveness of the candidate and to ensure the right fit, it is essential to ask the right questions. Some of the aspects on which the candidate can be evaluated are:

1. Adaptability– In most organisational systems, change is the only constant. Candidate should be able to give examples of the evaluation, shift and growth in his/her previous workplace, and how new roles were handled.

2. Team Player– Today’s competitive business world requires individuals to be cooperative and they must possess the skills that can help groups thrive and become more productive. The candidate must be creative and self-directed, who can think of competitive gains of the entire team and organisation.

3. Comprehending Disparate Information– Every work environment has overabundance of data and information which can be quite overwhelming. The candidate should be able to see important patterns and trends in the information, proactively see the market dynamics, and take decisions accordingly.

4. People and Relationship Management– Positive and productive energy for the initiatives and projects is essential for the success of any company. The candidate should be able to create a spirited workplace with affirming and attentive interactions with others.

5. Owning the Mistakes-Making mistakes is essential for adaptive learning. Learners make quite a few mistakes, and are able to learn important lessons. The candidate should be able to describe his/her failures, and the lessons learnt from these mistakes. If the candidate is not able to describe any failure, consider it a warning sign. Also, if the person keeps blaming external factors for their failures or problems, it might be a good idea to not pursue.

6. Constant Learning-Candidates should be able to display the eagerness to learn, and should also be able to pursue learning on their own. New concepts, ideas, and information should get them excited, not make them feel nervous or intimated.

7. Social Media Presence– Professional information can easily be seen on the social media such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook etc., and it is an essential key to find out more about the candidate as an individual and also as an employee. Social behaviour of a person might give a hint how he or she will fit in the company’s culture. If the candidate has anything to hide, they will not disclose much information, which can be a warning sign.

8. Soft Skills– It is important to gauge the social skills during interview. Skills can be acquired, but not the personality. The candidate should be able to elaborate the answers if required, and should be able to maintain the eye contact. Soft skills such as emotional intelligence, though process, interpersonal skills and communication skills are important, as they matter.

9. Questions Matter– Once the interview is over, the candidate should be able to comprehend the information gathered during the process of interview, and be in the position to synthesize and ask thoughtful questions about the core business. The depth of understanding about the business can help companies evaluate the candidate’s thought process, and if they will be able to diagnose market situations and respond to it responsibly.

The candidate should also be able to answer questions about business and industry, and what aspect of the core business interests them. This will show their level of interest in the company, and if they have done enough homework to justify their willingness. They should be able to understand and connect with the business, as well as the role they are expected to fill. The questions candidate ask can give the insight what is important for them.

No candidate exactly fits the bill or is perfectly qualified for the job. There is going to be leaning in any job. Although gut feeling helps, asking the right questions is also quite critical. The person should not only be right fit for the company, but also right fit for the job. To deal with the challenges of hiring the right candidates, organisations often engage with the staffing agencies as they have experience, reach and means to hire the most suitable candidates for any given job. Idexcel is a premier provider of IT staffing solutions to Fortune 500 customers. Whether it is providing just a few resources or staffing entire project teams involving hundreds of resources, Idexcel’s IT staffing solutions helps clients with the right talent, skills and competencies when they need them. We provide clients exceptional IT talent to meet their demanding technology initiatives at both local and national levels. Idexcel exceeds client expectations through highly effective processes for recruiting, screening, testing, and talent engagement.

The Many Benefits From A Talent Pipeline – Idexcel Recruiting & Hiring Roundup

1. The Many Benefits From A Talent Pipeline – And How It Improves Quality Of Hire

If you’re looking for a powerful strategic recruiting approach that has powerful long-term impacts, you really only have two choices: employer branding, and a “recruiting talent pipeline.” While almost every major corporation is investing heavily in building their employer brand, it’s quite rare for one to actually have a high-performing external recruiting talent pipeline. A recruiting talent pipeline approach is known by a variety of names, including a “recruiting prospect inventory,” a “recruiting pool,” or a recruiting network. It is designed to give you a continuous supply of high-quality and interested external recruiting prospects to choose from. It is strategic because it has a long-term talent-supply focus, which means that critical jobs can be filled faster and with higher quality and more interested prospects. [Continue reading…]

2. Why “Employee Engagement” Is The Successories Poster of HR

Employee engagement is one of those perpetual trending topics in HR and recruiting, probably because for years now, pundits and practitioners alike still haven’t figured out how to confront what seems to be a fairly endemic case of malaise and apathy perpetually plaguing our workforce.

I’m not sure why it is that talent leaders and recruiting pros can’t to have a near obsessive fixation on what’s inherently an amorphous and highly ambiguous concept, but I think the primary driver of our engagement fetish is that it seems to be a convenient, categorical catch-all that’s more or less seen as the whipping boy for all of the manifold problems plaguing the HR and recruiting profession today. [Continue reading…]

3. How to Bring Out Talent in Your Team

If you manage other people, the first thing you need to understand is that your success depends on their success. The more you empower your employees, the more they will grow and thrive. Here’s how to get started…

Give employees generous boundaries. Contrary to conventional wisdom, boundaries don’t restrict team members; they empower them. Define the boundaries within which an employee can make his or her own decisions. In doing so, you give them freedom to act. [Continue reading…]

4. 10 Ways Employee Surveys Help Attract and Retain Talent

The war for talent rages on. A 2015 ICIMS study found that 86 percent of the 107 HR professionals surveyed expect hiring to increase or stay the same. However, employers are looking for less conventional means of connecting with job seekers.

Social recruiting remains a popular choice as many companies turn to social media to find strong talent. The Global Recruiting Trends 2016 report found 47 percent of the 3,894 hiring managers surveyed say social media is the most effective employer branding tool, offering multiple outlets that provide unique features that can help with recruiting. [Continue reading…]

5. Use Your Employee Referral Program in Social Recruiting

A strong workplace culture increases business performance by engaging everyone in a united goal, values and vision. It is also essential for helping to attract and retain talent; a key element to achieving business growth. The culture of your workplace has a significant impact on your employer brand and influences the perception of working for you. It is also crucial for staff retention, as employees will look to escape a toxic culture. Furthermore, a good understanding of your current culture will enable you to hire with cultural fit in mind, helping you to find those who will thrive in your organisation and prevent costly recruitment mistakes. So how can you get an accurate picture of your workplace culture, and identify any potential areas for improvement?
[Continue reading…]

The 5 Most Popular Articles Among Recruiters This Month

1. How “Blind Recruitment” Works And Why You Should Consider It

Blind recruitment, the practice of removing personally identifiable information from the resumes of applicants including their name, gender, age, education, and even sometimes the number of years of experience, is gaining popularity.

Organizations including Deloitte, HSBC, the BBC, powerhouse law firm Clifford Chance, and cloud-storage firm Compose Inc have committed to the practice.

Blind recruitment is used to overcome unconscious bias and promote diversity in the workforce, and it has gained an increasing foothold in companies after a series of studies showed that people with ethnic names needed to send out 50% more resumes before they got a callback than job hunters with “white”-sounding names. Continue reading…

2. Is Agency recruitment going to be ‘uber-ised’? The answer here.

At least twice a month I am approached by an HR Tech startup with a ‘new’ idea to ‘disrupt’ the recruitment industry. Plenty of these guys (and occasionally, gals) are super-smart, and all are earnest, (sometimes fanatical), in their belief that they have found ‘the holy grail’.

In many cases, indeed I think most cases, it’s very early in the conversation that I am told, ‘we will be the Uber of recruitment’ or perhaps, ‘we plan to uber-ise the defunct agency recruitment model’. Continue reading…

3. Employee Retention and Hiring – “Love the One You’re With” first

These are some of the lyrics to the classic Crosby Stills and Nash tune “Love the One You’re With” – #earworm. I was listening to this sometime over the weekend and it got me thinking about recruiting, HR and one of the pressing concerns we all have in companies large and small around the world – retention. Continue reading…

4. Leaders who are great at hiring do these 3 things

If you’ve never made a hiring mistake then I’d guess you haven’t hired that many people. Despite all the research, experience and so-called tools, ineffective recruitment decisions remain one of the biggest drags on any organisations performance. Continue reading…

5. Should HR rehire ex-employees?

The beauty of boomerang employees (or rehiring former workers) is that they often have a shorter learning curve and require less training, according to Bill Driscoll, district president for the staffing firm Accountemps.

Driscoll added that if an employee resigned to complete further education or training, having them back will potentially bring new skills and ideas to the organisation. Continue reading…

Tips for Recruiting Top Tech Talent

In today’s fast moving world, technology seems to be the buzzword. Every sector, industry and every enterprise is seeking fresh talent with sharpness, alacrity and an expertise much better than it’s competitors. With ever increasing demands for technological experts, it is indeed becoming a task to find the right talents for the right industries. The Information Technology field in particular which has taken the world by storm faces this crunch fiercely. There is a tough competition among the hiring companies to hire the best talents in the industry. On the one hand, freshers are enticed with high salaries that seem enormous, and on the other, the experienced staff often walk away with outrageous office perks. So what can the organizations do in order to upgrade their creamy layer of top tech talent?

There are numerous views and strategies of experts who seem to have come up with certain guidelines for recruiting the top talents.

Keeping in touch with tech talent is very essential. In order to achieve this, attending meet ups regularly is a must. Such meetings are often the right places to find smart and interesting personalities that suit the company’s needs. Building relations play a very important part in recruiting talents. Another enticing factor is offering referral incentives to current employees. It is a fact that if the current staff is really happy working with and for the organization, and they feel taken care of then they are sure to refer the best people. Similarly, referral cheques are an added bonus.

Social media and social networking is a boon in the present days to find potential candidates. Instead of looking just at the resume of a prospective candidate, it helps to go beyond and check the candidate’s social media profile like LinkedIn and Twitter. This helps in formation of a relationship too. A requirement posted on a friend’s wall on a social networking site is bound to get reposted or tagged and hence attracts many more applicants. The fact that these sites are free makes it even more helpful. Most people especially in large companies aren’t fully engaged with their jobs or satisfied. So instead of waiting for a talent to seek a company, the company can hire a talent through a professional network like LinkedIn. Finding the one with the right credentials, getting in touch with them through a private message makes the whole job of finding the right talent very interesting. It also becomes a flattering experience for the candidate who is more excited about the interview process rather than someone who has found an opening scouring the internet for jobs. Likewise advertising through a popular medium like You Tube creates an interest and curiosity. A video that incorporates the techies of a company helps the candidates get a fair idea as to how the team functions, the type of people in the team and the company culture.

As and when a need arises, it is important to hire ‘quickly’. It is understandable that the company cannot hire the first candidate that walks in but at the same time, eligible candidates cannot be asked to wait for months together for a response. Also extending certain additional facilities for female staff that are immensely talented widens the chances of hiring the best.

Some companies believe that marketing through the current staff go a long way in influencing recruitment. Sending out current employees to networking events to spread the word about the company, sharing their positive testimonials and having them speak to the candidates in the comfortable space and technical language makes it convenient for a new candidate to walk in confidently. Candidates could be attracted to a company sometimes by showing off a company’s present staff. Also through this, a personal connection with the company gets established even before the candidate actually joins.
Some recruiters strongly believe that professionals often have strong personalities and are used to being sought after rather than seeking out. Hence making contacts in the local communities and tapping the local market enhances the chances of getting the right talents at the right time.

Helping the employees to develop new skills is also critical to attract top talents. Information Technology is one of the industries that move very quickly and it is imperative for the staff to keep themselves updated and relevant.

A few years back, hiring offsite employees with great technological expertise was a difficult task. But these days, advancements like cloud computing and video conferencing have opened doors to hiring remote staff. Hence geographical proximity is no longer a necessity to hire the best talent. The search could be easily expanded far and wide.

Stealing top tech talents from top companies with salaries and perks works but not always. It is always better to let them know that you are genuinely interested in hiring them. If they are unable to join, it makes sense to ask them if they can refer equally strong and committed candidates like common friends, ex-colleagues and so on. This would increase the network too.

While these were a few tips to recruit fresh talent, it is equally important to retain the existing talent. While most companies are busy looking out for new talent, they should not allow the existing employees to slip away because there are other employers constantly enticing bright talents. Promotions and perks for the existing employees would go a long way in retaining the ‘Brand ambassadors’ of the company.

3 HR Trends That Are Becoming Best Practices – Staffing Roundup

1. 3 HR Trends That Are Becoming Best Practices

In today’s business world, the only constant is change — especially when it comes to HR. The human resources department of yesterday, largely focused on mitigating compliance and employee-related issues, is long gone.

Jason Averbrook, CEO of the Marcus Buckingham Company, explains here:

“A hundred years later, a lot of organizations are still running HR that same way; focusing on risk, focusing on compliance, focusing on the transactional side of it, but there’s a whole new era, and things like unions and pensions and transparency of the workplace have changed.” [Continue Reading…]

2. 8 Hot Tech Jobs Getting Big Salary Bumps In 2016

Although the nation’s professional workforce is expected to post an average of a 4.1% base pay increase in 2016, technology workers overall are expected to fare better with a 5.3% increase. Thanks to an increasing focus on digital strategy among businesses, several “creative” positions are set to cash in as well, according to the 2016 Salary Guide from staffing firm Robert Half Technology and The Creative Group.

Wireless network engineers in particular will be rolling in the dough, with an anticipated base pay increase approaching double-digit growth next year. Meanwhile, creative jobs like multimedia designers and content strategists are expected to post higher gains than the overall national bump and the tech sector. [Continue Reading…]

3. Getting Employees Excited About a New Direction

When your company is in trouble — a new competitor or technology threatens your business model, your cost structure changes, the economy tanks — you have one job as a leader: to get the company back on track. The crisis provides compelling reason for change and, if companies can weather it, they can emerge stronger. But no company today can rest on its laurels. Disruptors can come from anywhere, any time. Leaders — especially those in large, successful organizations — must create an environment where people thrive on passion and purpose, and are as agile and innovative as their potential disruptors. How do you take a successful company — one already highly regarded by employees, customers, and shareholders alike — and reignite people’s passion? How do you energize and galvanize them around a new course? [Continue Reading…]

4. What makes your staffing company different or great?

When people ask about what makes your staffing company different – or great – how do you answer it? Because you put customers first? What does that mean exactly? And is there a difference between responding to the needs of your customers and being truly customer-centric? [Continue Reading…]