Less is more. It’s a lesson that we all have learned to appreciate early on in our personal lives, but why don’t we apply it to our recruiting practices? Most hiring managers like to think that the more resumes they look at, or the more people their resume database screens, or the more recruiters they hire the more likely they are to get the right employee. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, when it comes to recruiting, more always means more complicated, cumbersome, and frustrating. Our advice, keep it simple.
Less Resumes, More Experts According to Glassdoor, the average job posting brings in anywhere from 75-250 resumes. Chances are you aren’t about to go through every one of those resumes, and your keyword search database is bound to let some great candidates fall through the cracks. Many 3rd party recruiters will waste your time by sending you 15+ resumes hoping to make anything stick so they can get paid. Therefore, refuse to work with anybody, whether it be HR or a recruiter, who is going to send you more than FIVE SOLID resumes. If your HR team or recruiters are truly experts in finding talent, they will find you candidates that meet or exceed your expectations, rather than just sending candidates that MIGHT be a fit. You just have to trust them to have your best interests in mind. After all, if you didn’t trust them why did you hire them? Less Choices, More Certainty You’re probably still skeptical about the last point. You’re thinking only FIVE? I am only supposed to look at five resumes before making my choice? This lady is full of [expletive]! However, have you heard of the Paradox of Choice? American Psychologist, Berry Schwartz, defines it as when you get so anxious by all the choices that it affects your ability to make the right choice. It’s like walking into a department store and getting so overwhelmed by all the options that you either walk out with nothing, or walk out with buyer’s remorse after purchasing something you didn’t really like. The same thing goes for candidates. The more resumes you look at, the less certainty you have that person you chose to hire was the right choice, therefore limiting your ability to put faith in them to do the job. Remember that these FIVE resumes should all be from candidates with the SOLID skills that fit your requirements. The only uncertainty would be whether they are a culture match which you can find out as you interview them. Less Recruiters, More Coverage The way modern day recruiting is set up makes it easy to hire five recruiters on contingency and let them do all the work for you. However, there are a few things wrong with this. First, you are making the other four recruiters work for free if you end up not hiring their candidate. Second, your recruiters know there are other recruiters on the same search meaning they are likely to send the same candidates they sent to you to other companies as well to heighten the odds of them getting a hire. Lastly, you are devaluing the position and the company. Odds are the recruiters are pulling from the same talent pool. Meaning the best candidates are going to be approached by multiple different recruiters about the same position making your company look bad and devaluing the desirability of the position. The easy fix is hire only one recruiter that you trust, AND hire them on an exclusive Cotainer or Retainer basis. You aren’t losing out on any of the coverage of having multiple recruiters because this recruiter is now even more loyal to you and willing to give you 110% since you are now both fully vested in the search because you both have skin in the game. Furthermore, you aren’t losing out on the coverage of having more recruiters because your chosen recruiter is looking in the same talent pool. The only difference is they are maintaining the exclusivity and high desirability of both your company and position. Less Time, More Engagement Keep the hiring process short to keep the candidate engaged. According to glass door the average hiring process is 23.8 days. However, if you want to keep your candidate engaged, it should only take about 2-3 weeks after you receive the candidate’s resume and complete interviews and extend an offer. Anything longer and the candidate starts to send their resume to other companies, get other opportunities, and reevaluate their decision to leave their current job. If you want to secure top level talent you have to keep them engaged and keep the waiting time short. Less Requirements, More Imagination The more requirements you are putting on your job postings the more you are discouraging top talent from applying to your position. When writing your job positions only put the skills that are absolutely essential to the position itself, and leave off anything else that isn’t mandatory for the job. The number one reason a great candidate won’t apply to a job is because there are one or two things that are listed as “requirements” that the candidate does not excel in, making them feel as if they aren’t a fit for the job even though they would excel in the position. Therefore, you are limiting yourself to only hiring a candidate that you designed in your head and not letting the candidate use his or her unique skills to grow your team. Less Comfort, More Fearlessness Don’t get comfortable with your hiring practices. Constantly look for new areas to refine how you search for talent and how you screen potential new hires. This could mean anything from letting go of the reigns a bit and asking your HR team or recruiter to limit the submissions to the top 5 SOLID resumes, to hiring a single recruiting firm on a Retainer or Cotainer basis to handle your hiring needs. Try a different interviewing method or hire someone that brings a new outlook to your team. The more comfortable you get at your job, the more complacent you become, allowing room for the next fearless leader to outshine and replace you. You have learned over and over again throughout life that less is more. It is time to begin applying that to your recruiting practices. Don’t accept the added stress of looking through hundreds of resumes or maintaining contact with multiple recruiters. Keep it simple and trust your team and chosen recruiter who have your best interests in mind. Soon you’ll come to discover what we already know at DCAProsearch, that when it comes to recruiting, less really is more.
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Finally! The open position you’ve had on your team for the last few weeks has been filled. You feel like you found the perfect candidate after countless interviews and resumes and your new employee is in their office setting up their desk. Little did you know, this employee is about to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and endanger your teams productivity and morale and maybe cause you to lose a major client. Why? Because you hired a lemon.
According to leadershipIQ a staggering 46% of new hires are considered mis-hires within the first 18 months. These mis-hires can have far reaching effects on your business that you couldn't prepare for.
What can you do to try and fix the problem? Although firing them seems like a good option, it means you have to give them a severance package and invest more money into a new search. Unless you make some changes in the way you screen and train new hires you are bound to hire another mis-hire at some point. Instead of engaging in the go nowhere cycle of hire and fire, take these steps to rehabilitating your mis-hires and review your hiring practices to make sure you avoid hiring another lemon later on. Make them a follower Every leader needs followers and who better to be a follower than an employee who has no ability to be a leader within your company. Followers keep the leaders within your company from engaging in a power struggle by allowing each leader to have the workforce that will allow ideas to come to fruition. Let them do the busy work you were avoiding People hate sitting around doing nothing. The same goes for your mis-hires. They’d rather sit at their desk doing busy work than sit around and spin in their chair. That makes them the employee of choice to do those time consuming tasks that take up the time of your best performing employees. Train them with incentives Have you ever thought about implementing incentives to encourage your worst employees? These incentives are nowhere near the rewards you give your best employees, but they can consist of letting your employee go home thirty minutes early once they completed their tasks, or letting them sit out of the mind-numbing financial meeting as long as they complete their sales graphs without extensive help. Give them a Mentor Although you and your employees may not have hit it off with your mis-hire, another leader in the company who doesn’t know their lack of work ethic may hit it off better. A mentor can encourage the mis-hire to better themselves and inspire them to change how they engage with your team Identify their Strengths Maybe your mis-hire really isn’t a bad employee, but they are just bad at their job. Their strengths simply don’t align with what they were hired to do. Therefore, find them a job within the company that does align with their strengths. Introduce them to other people within the company and reinforce them that it is okay to leave your team to join another team. Review Your Hiring Techniques Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you continue to use the same hiring techniques you are going to continue to hire the same bad lemons. That’s why companies are increasingly beginning to hire outside recruiters: to add another layer of screening to filter out bad candidates. Not only do recruiters allow another layer of screening, but they are able to get you passive candidates that are already high achievers. Recruiters get you invested candidates who turn into invested employees. There is a Solution Don’t lose hope if you hired a lemon. Bad employees can often be rehabilitated to become your best achievers and future leaders within the organization. However, this comes with a warning. Too many lemons will come at a cost. That is why companies invest so much in getting their hiring practices right. DCAProsearch has proven time and time again with our hires that the right employee can increase profits, productivity, and morale of the entire office. Companies have recognized that our recruiters get it right. That is why we boast a 92.8% repeat business and referral rate for the quality of our work. Stop hiring lemons and start hiring a recruiter to lower your chances of ending up with a lemon. The push toward multiculturalism has revolutionized how many companies view potential new hires. Rather than enforcing congruency in how they require their employees to think, companies are finding the value in diversity of thought and various points of view that come with multiculturalism. Multiculturalism has become the buzz word among HR departments and hiring managers as they strive toward hiring employees from different cultural backgrounds and disciplines of thought. However, multiculturalism cannot remain simply a mandate from the Human Resources that only affects the hiring process. Rather, multiculturalism has to become a transformative movement within the company that reinvents company culture.
A movement serves as a force that revolutionizes the values and decision making process of a company, leaving no process untouched. After all, diversity and inclusion is a two-step process. Diversity cannot sustain itself without inclusion. Although hiring multicultural talent is beneficial toward improving diversity of thought, if companies do not take active steps to foster a multicultural movement then diverse thinkers will feel marginalized and excluded, stifling your employee’s ability to fully participate in the culture of the company. Therefore if companies want multicultural talent, they need to take the time and resources to ensure that multiculturalism is fully implemented in every process and task that occurs within the workplace. It may sound like a huge process, but there are actually proven ways that companies have supported the movement toward true diversity and re-imagined what it means to be a multicultural workplace. 1) Develop Diversity Group Think Tanks Most large corporations consist of thousands of employees each coming from various backgrounds. With so many people, minority voices can often be muted by the thousands of other voices within the company. Diversity groups serve as a means to unite similar voices into a force to promote inclusion for marginalized employees. L’Oréal has landed itself a top 20 spot on the Thomson Reuters Diversity & Inclusion Index for their incorporation of diversity groups within the workplace. With think tanks such as disABILITY, Out@Loreal, and Women of Color L’Oréal employees are empowered to speak out for new inclusive corporate policies and develop product for under served consumer groups. This strategy has resulted in significant growth for the brand, increasing their sales in emerging and multicultural markets by nearly 10% versus 7.1% overall according to the recent financial statements made public in their 2018 annual report. 2) Encourage Diversity Mentoring Mentoring is often praised for developing new talent, but it also serves as an opportunity for both parties involved to learn from each other. Part of Pricewaterhouse Cooper’s (PwC) Diversity & Inclusion strategy is to encourage their employees to participate in diversity mentoring and sponsorship. Upper-level management is often eager to mentor lower-level employees who come from different backgrounds and bring different points of view. This not only develops management from within but it encourages employees to develop open minds and find solutions that they may not have seen before. 3) Incorporate Multicultural Teams and Management Every year the group Working Mothers releases their list of “Best Companies for Multicultural Women.” Consistently on the list are companies like IBM, Deloitte, P&G, and Accenture. A Forbes report looked into what these companies all had in common and found that the CEO’s of these companies actively promoted three things: They all provide an annual update on diversity to the board of directors; they all require a dedicated diversity executive to update them on diversity metrics; and they all meet regularly with a diversity executive to review goals and performance. These companies invest in diversity at all levels of the company and integrate it into all teams. These are key actions that companies can take to achieving their goals for Diversity and Inclusion. 4) Measure Diversity Initiatives The French hospitality company Sodexo was recently recognized in France for having the greatest gender balance within their board consisting of 53% women and a female chair. Sodexo Chair, Sophie Bellon, attributes their stride toward representation on setting goals and measuring. “What gets measured gets done,” said Bellon. Many companies have adopted similar strategies, setting goals to have their company diversity match the demographics of the nation or city they reside in. While goal setting can be a good way to motivate diverse hiring practices, it is important to recognize the difference between a goal and quota. The difference being that goals recognizes the value of diversity and encourage diverse hires while a quota forces hiring practices without valuing what diverse talent brings. 5) Serve Multicultural Audiences Having a multicultural team also makes it easier to expand into multicultural consumer spaces. Multicultural advertising agencies will all be quick to tell you the secret toward targeting multicultural audiences is to hire employees who mirror your audience. A Harvard Business Review case study revealed that cosmetic giant L’Oréal actively seeks to hire multicultural talent in their product development teams to find opportunities in new markets and to serve a diverse consumer base. 6) Value Diverse Points of View The very nature of multiculturalism in the workplace is to develop diverse points of view and gain an understanding of solutions that differ from what your company was doing before. P&G Chief Brand Officer, Marc Pritchard, told an audience that “If you aren’t doing multicultural marketing you aren’t doing marketing” at the 2018 ANA conference. Therefore, valuing and empowering multicultural voices is the first step to being able unlock the benefits of a multicultural team. 7) Invest in Cultural Brokers Although multiculturalism has been recognized by most Fortune 500 companies to be beneficial to the workplace, often times, multicultural teams develop the Tower of Babel Syndrome where team members talk past one another without understanding and teamwork breaks down. That is where cultural brokers come in. Sujin Jang, assistant professor of Organizational Psychology at INSTEAD, recently published research revealing that in multicultural teams cultural brokers can be useful to navigate and translate the different points of view. She writes in her research that “[Cultural brokers are] team members who have relatively more multicultural experience than others and who act as a bridge between their monocultural teammates.” Therefore, investing in cultural brokers can help with team morale and efficiency within the office. Multiculturalism brings substantial value to any company, but it cannot remain simply a mandate from HR. Multiculturalism is a state of mind and a movement that has to be adopted by every member of the company and woven into the company culture. Therefore, if you are looking to promote multiculturalism in your workplace, be sure to create a plan that also involves inclusion initiatives. Utilize multicultural recruiting agencies to source multicultural talent and provide tips on how to implement inclusion strategies. Hiring diverse talent is great, but without promoting proven inclusion programs your talent will leave you as fast as they came in. You walk into work and on your desk you find that one of your best employees has just handed in their two week resignation. It’s upsetting news, but unfortunately every hiring manager will have go through the process of replacing talent. The question is, where do you find this talent? As a recruiting specialist with over 23 years of experience, I can tell you that it’s not via job boards or your corporate careers website. In fact, those are actually one of the worst places to post your open positions because anybody and everybody can apply, qualified or not. Job boards are not everything they are cut out to be for a few reasons. You Don’t Have the Time Let’s be honest. Are you actually going to look through every single resume? The honest answer is no, because you just don’t have the time. The average job posting receives 75-250 resumes. While more resumes may seem like a good thing because you can screen more candidates, it is also a time consuming task that neither you nor HR can devote your time to. Although, many companies have attempted to speed up the process by utilizing programs that scan resumes and send back any that have matching keywords, the truth is the program can never replace a human when it comes to finding great talent. Resumes are a story of growth and experience. Robots aren’t programmed to find potential between the lines, therefore they will miss things that you might find valuable. So either way you are going to lose great talent for one reason: you don’t have time to do it yourself. The Applicants are Cheating on You The resumes you get on job boards are from what we call, professional job searchers. While you’re working, their 9 to 5 consists of applying to job after job. There may be a valid reasons for this, and being temporarily unemployed is not a bad thing. However, you know without a doubt that you are not the only one they are sending their resume to. They are not invested in you and your company, they are instead focused on landing any job that will call them back. As a hiring manager, you should want the candidates that you are recruiting to be invested in you and excited to work for you, not any company out there. Invested candidates become invested employees, and you only deserve employees that are invested in the success of your company. The People You Want Don’t Look at Job Boards You want professionals who have a proven track record of success and who enjoy coming to work. Hate to break it to you, but those professionals already have jobs and they are not going to be looking at your job posts. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in a new opportunity. If you want passive candidates you are going to have to find them and approach them yourself. This means asking your network, scouring around LinkedIn or candidate boards, or attending networking events. All of which are very time consuming tasks that don’t guarantee that you’re going to find the talent you are hoping to find. Your Resume Database is Outdated When was the last time you collected resumes? It was likely the last time you posted an open position. Therefore, your resume database is going to be out of date. As time goes on people progress in their careers. The marketing director who submitted their resume two years ago isn’t going to want to apply for an open marketing director job now because they are further in their career now. Furthermore, candidates who used to be unqualified have likely completed tasks and projects that would make them qualified now, but you don’t know about it because you don’t have an updated resume. Therefore, if you aren’t regularly updating your resume database the candidates you pull do not exist anymore, and any resume will be old and inapplicable to your current search. You Want an Outside Opinion Hiring from a job board usually follows the standard hiring process of resume, phone interview, in person interview, fly in, and hire. The process is typical among most companies, but it offers hiring managers very little time to really get to know the applicant. As a result, according to LearshipIQ only 19% of all new hires are considered successes by hiring managers, whereas, 46% were considered to be mis-hires. The hiring process does not give hiring managers enough time to evaluate whether a candidate would be successful or not. Therefore, you want another invested party involved in the hiring process so they can get to know the candidate outside of the typical process and give their second opinion. The Solution If not on job boards or the corporate career site where should you find applicants for your open positions? The answer is simple: use a recruiter. Recruiters are devoted to finding you the best talent based on your needs. We not only get to know you and your company, but we become your ambassadors to the passive candidate network. The candidates we send you are unavailable on job boards, and we are able to get to know them on a more personal level than the typical hiring process allows ensuring that they have the skills and qualifications that you need. Furthermore, when we contact qualified passive candidates, as your ambassador, we pitch your company for you, thereby building their interest in your position. Recruiters do what a job board fails at. We provide candidates that resonate with you and your company. While only 19% of employees hired from typical hiring methods are considered a success, DCAProSearch has a 92.8% repeat business rate due to the success of our candidates. Recruiters are invested in their clients and we find talent who are just as invested. The majority of our candidates rise up the ranks to become directors, VPs, and managing partners. Therefore, while job boards find resumes, recruiters find talent that is invested in your company and your success. So stop posting your open positions on job boards and call a recruiter, because you deserve talent that is just as invested as you. We are in a candidate market, which means one thing: If you are not giving your employees what they want, they will leave you. To make matters more complicated, once your employees leave you, it will be difficult to fill those positions unless you give the new candidates what they want plus more. The most recent jobs report revealed that companies have more open positions than there are qualified employees to fill them. The vacancy of a mid-to-top-tier level employee making $100,000 typically costs a company $1,149 a day, assuming the average employee brings in three times their salary. Therefore, as an employer and team leader you need to take a few steps to ensure your talent remains with you to avoid the costs of an unexpected vacant position.
Team Up with an Outside Recruiter When I connect with new clients, the main excuse they give me is, “Why do we need an outside recruiter? That’s what HR is for.” Except not really”. Your company’s HR has many essential functions they oversee. Recruiting and developing talent is an area they can’t truly devote too much time to and a lot of great talent is missed or neglected. When employees decide they want to pursue another position, it is likely because an outside recruiter contacted them about a great opportunity elsewhere. Therefore, an outside recruiter can either be your biggest competition or your best friend. Job candidates see outside recruiters as an unbiased third party and more trustworthy than your HR contact. As your ally, executive recruiters can train an employee on how to progress within the company rather than find a new position. Furthermore, any ethical recruiter will refuse to siphon talent from an existing client making the executive recruiter your friend as opposed to your competition. Ensure Your Employees are Your Top Priority The expectations of employers usually revolve around two ideals: make a profit for shareholders and keep customers happy. However, employees have begun to demand that they be included in the mix too. Studies have shown that the happier employees are at work the less likely they are to leave, and the more value they bring to the company. Therefore, implement office activities that break the monotony of the work day and keep employees excited about coming to work. For offices on a higher budget that could be taking team development days at a Ropes Course or schedule an office Happy Hour. Offices on a lower budget can sign up for an Ice Cream of the Month Subscription or even go out to volunteer together as a team. Stop Building a Team and Start Forming a Family While team building is important, no amount of team development days can replace the connection that you will build with your employees. The number one reason candidates refuse to leave their current position is because of the bonds they have formed with their managers and colleagues. Make it a point to get to know what your employees do outside of work. Meet their families and connect with their kids on bring your kid to work day. Attend events that your employees invite you to. Form connections with them outside of the daily 9 to 5. The close family bonds that employees form with the people they work with are what keeps them at a company, and in some cases cause them to follow their bosses or colleagues to a new company if they leave. Train Steadily and Promote Regularly Nobody likes to feel stagnant in their job. The majority of employers will hire new talent and expect them to hit the ground running. However, training them too quickly will typically result in one of two things: the employee will feel overwhelmed, shut down, and leave after a year, or the employee will perfect their role, enjoy it, and then feel unchallenged after a year. The key to a new hire is to continue to develop their skills steadily to keep your employees challenged and always learning. Training them steadily as opposed to all at once will allow them to master, and in some cases improve, how they perform each task they are assigned before venturing to the next challenge. Finally, after about two to three years when they have learned everything in their current role, promote them to continue challenging their skills and keep them from feeling stagnant. If you Love Them, Let them Go It’s hard to accept, but sometimes there just is not anything more you can do for your employees and it is out of your control. It may be that they deserve to get promoted but you do not have a position, or they got an offer that is too good to be true. Whatever the case, if you want to see them succeed you have to let them go. Throw them a departure party and invite the rest of the team. This way you can get closure, the rest of your employees can get closer, and the employee leaving can feel valued. Letting your employee leave will give them skills and experiences you could not have taught them, and will make them better. However, do not throw away all hope. If you did everything right, many employees realize how good they had it at their previous company and will come back later when a position opens. Therefore, it isn’t a “goodbye,” but rather a “see you later.” In the meantime call your outside recruiter and start a search to find the next member of your team. Losing an employee is always difficult and costly, but making your employees feel valued is the best way to ensure that you retain your team. Build a connection with them and the other members on your team and express with them that you are glad they joined the team. However, don’t be so naive to believe an employee will never leave you. Be ready for them to depart unexpectedly, because one day they will find an opportunity that is too good to pass up. Find an executive recruiter, and be proactive in recruiting by forming a relationship with your recruiter. That way your recruiter knows what you value in your employees so they can keep some people in mind if the day comes you need to replace an employee. Before the rise of the modern day activist brand, companies previously held a low standard on what it meant to be a socially conscious brand. However, as the evolution of the socially conscious brand has begun to take on more meaning, consumers are demanding brands take a stand on the social inequalities that the brands had once tried to ignore. Marketers must understand the evolution of the socially conscious brand to foresee the future of what the socially conscious brand will become.
1900’s: Fiscal Philanthropist In the past, brands did not have to do much to be considered socially conscious. All they had to do was simply write a yearly check toward a cause or selected charity. Their impact to bring about social change was no more than the silent Fiscal Philanthropist. Although their monetary donations are appreciated, the donations did little to bring positive social change. Today, brands still claim to be socially conscious by writing a yearly check. However, consumers are dismissing the "blank check" approach as part of a corporate show with little sentiment to create lasting social change. Mid 2000’s: Social Givers Then came along brands like Tom's and Warby Parker that revolutionized the Socially Conscious Brand with the Buy One, Give One model of giving that redefined what it meant to not only be socially conscious, but active. The new socially conscious brand was no longer a once-a-year commitment, but a constant source of social good to support far-away nations and impoverished peoples. This created a wave of corporations poorly copying the Tom's and Warby Parker model of the socially conscious brand, pushing to remain relevant by engaging in a form of corporate poverty porn. Major companies patted themselves on the back by appearing in photos and videos as saviors of the third world, but continuing to remain silent to the inequalities that existed at home. 2010 – 2016: Cautious Ally With the rise of multiculturalism and the modern LGBT movement, 2010 brands began to test their influence to impact social change. As support for diversity and LGBT causes increased, brands such as IKEA, Oreo, and Tiffany & Company recognized the power of representation by engaging with the LGBT movement. The introduction of same-sex couples to their advertisements not only brought higher sales and brand recognition, it created discourse about the subject. This recognition brought about the need for increased diversity and multiculturalism in advertising to represent all consumers. Companies followed suit, releasing campaigns like Coca Cola’s America the Beautiful ad in 2014 that championed racial and ethnic diversity. The new Socially Conscious brand was a champion for diversity and used its influence to recognize the beauty of multiculturalism. Consumers rewarded brands that they saw represented the diversity of America with higher sales and higher brand recognition. Hundreds of companies began establishing diversity and inclusion departments to mirror the diversity of the marketplace in their offices to encourage diversity of thought. However, although brands were quick to embrace multiculturalism and include those once ignored by advertisers, their involvement only went as far as being cautious corporate allies. Brands were still skittish around causing real social change. 2016 - Present: Vocal Activist The election of the new administration rang in a new era for the Socially Conscious Brand: The era of the Resistors. Socially Conscious Brands have evolved from the brand as an active observer to a vocal advocate against injustice. The presence of more multicultural, female, and LGBT representation in the workforce has given rise to the vocally polarizing brands we see today. From Ben & Jerry refusing to serve two scoops of the same ice cream in Australia for LGBT rights to Nike’s Collin Kaepernick ad to the recent Gillette #MeToo ad, brands have recognized the power of their voice for social change. Today, the socially conscious brand must go further than donate money. They must create discourses around injustice and be able to challenge the status quo. Consumers are more active in social issues than ever, and they expect the brands they use to reflect those values. Although new social warrior brands have repelled some consumers, all in all, they have been rewarded for their social convictions by loyalists and activists alike. 2020 – Future: Transparent Role Model Skepticism still exists around the socially conscious brand of today and the motives behind becoming social warriors. Many consumers argue that the socially conscious brand is only challenging the status quo to benefit their bottom line. Therefore, the socially conscious brand of the future must prove to consumers that they practice what they preach by incorporating diversity throughout the office. Transparency is the next step in brand evolution where consumers will want to see top management reflecting diversity principles that the company promotes. Customers in stores will want to see products that accommodate people of different abilities, religions, and gender identities. Marketers, heed note because soon enough diversity will become tangible in the products and services we use every day. Utilize diversity recruiters to start the change in the office space, create social groups within your company to celebrate diversity, and engage in social celebrations such as Pride and other cultural festivals. Start preparing your corporate culture now because otherwise, you will fail to be the socially conscious brand of tomorrow. Ninety percent of all work related problems stem from not having the right talent on your team, and by the right talent we mean diverse talent. By ensuring that your team is well equipped to handle any situation that may arise, you are saving yourself from hours of wasted time in the office. However, we get it, hiring the right team is a lot easier said than done, but as recruiters we know a thing or two about the type of employees every executive team needs. Whether you are VP of Operational Marketing or an Advertising Director, you need to find employees with these individual skills in addition to the skills already necessary to get the job done.
The Qualitative Pioneer Background: Anthropology, Sociology, Strategic Planning, Consumer Insights Why? That should be the first sound out of this person’s mouth when searching for a solution. Seeing the quantitative data is not enough for your qualitative pioneer. They want to know why the numbers are as they are. Using their anthropological or sociological background they seek the truth via ethnography, focus groups, and interviews to understand the motives behind human decisions. Their qualitative processes may take longer than typical data collection, but the information they receive will be much richer in guiding business decisions. Brands like Adidas, Under Armour, L’Oréal, and Microsoft use anthropological methods and ethnography to understand the motivations of their customers and how their consumers use their products. The Digital Dweller Background: Marketing, Social Media, Advertising, Digital Websites, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, Google, Blogs, LinkedIn. Who has time to keep up with all the new digital platforms consumers are using now a-days? Your digital dweller does. Your online presence is just as important as your offline product or services. After all, brands are built online, but they are also destroyed. Your digital dweller has the ability to integrate all communications platforms, design your digital presence, and implement online strategy at the click of a button. Need to run an impromptu a/b test, debug a landing page, or diffuse a social media meltdown? No problem, the digital dweller is always online. The Impromptu Creative Background: Copy Writer, Graphic Design, Art Design, Website Design Most companies already have an in house team of designers to handle all graphic design and artistic needs. If not, many utilize outside agencies. However, the process of submitting a design request, back and forth communication, and the final result can often take days if not weeks. For those last minute requests for presentation decks, website hero images, and displays, the impromptu designer on your team will be able to handle the requests that agencies and in house teams cannot get to fast enough. The Numerical Genius Background: Actuary Science, Math, Finance, Accounting, Math Professor You are in a meeting and the CEO asks you for your new ROI and KPI based on the new marketing numbers you are presenting. You look down at your notepad realizing you left that information in your office when suddenly the numerical genius hands you a slip of paper with the information freshly solved for. They have equations flowing around their heads 24/7 and are just waiting to plug numbers to give you the results. They are book smart, and have a math background or have taught the subject in question. That would explain their ability to fill in a marketing or accounting formula in less than 5 seconds flat. The Data Disciple Background: Computer Science, Software Engineer, Marketing Analytics Today the business world runs on data, and you need someone who can understand it. Whether you are asking to back up your claims, find trends, analyze performance your data disciple is always there with their excel spreadsheets open and tableau charts ready. The data disciple is logical and always backs up their claims with real time data. If buying patterns change they will know immediately. Google analytics, social media, SPSS, Tableau, you name it they have it loaded on their computer constantly analyzing the data and ready to give you real time stats. The Smooth Talker Background: Communications, Advertising, Public Relations, Theater Yes, they probably did somehow talk you into giving them extra vacation time, but that simply proves their ability to talk their way out of anything. Your smooth talker is your secret weapon to woo potential clients and win accounts that you were entirely unprepared for. Networking seems to be one of their favorite activities and they always have a way of getting what they want. The truth is, when you have a smooth talker on your team words really are mightier than the sword. Just make sure they don’t use those words to get you to give them that pay raise… again. The Social Influencer Background: Event Planning, Social Media, Digital Influencer While the smooth talker may know how to talk the talk, your social influencer walks the walk. The social influencer is likely to already have thousands of followers on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They know how to make a moment memorable. Need to plan a showcase for SXSW? Your social influencer will create magic. Want to invite influencers to get the word out? Your influencer has them on speed dial. Looking to create a social media moment? They are more than happy to do it for the Insta. Best of all, the social influencer is likely to plan one heck of an office Christmas party! The right team has the power to make even the most trying week a walk in the park. Investing in a team with diverse skills is essential to maintaining a smooth operation. Leave it to an executive recruiter that gives you the Distinctive Client Advantage through our proven recruiting process. Submit a talent search or talk with our lead recruiter to learn how you can build up your power team. When you set your goals for the year, you likely have two goals in mind. The first goal is what is expected of you and your team to reach. This is usually a safe and very realistic goal. The second goal is your Reach Goal. Your reach goal is the goal you were really hoping for in order to go above and beyond. In many cases achieving your reach goal results in bigger bonuses, a promotion, and maybe even that corner office.
Your reach goal is what you know is achievable with a lot of hard work, a few risks, and most importantly, the right team. The people you work with are an extension of your ability. In other words, hiring a diverse set of employees will allow you to reach new a new potential. A 2015 McKinsey report found that companies with higher racial and ethnic diversity were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean. Here are only a few ways in which diversifying your team will allow you to achieve the reach goals you have been striving for. 1) Their Strengths Become your Strengths Imagine being a carpenter and your only goal is to build a house. Sure, you can build the frame of the house all by yourself, but what about the plumbing, electrical work, and interior design? You don’t have the tools in your tool bag to do those tasks, but your team does. Their tools quickly become your tools. Similarly, filling your team with diverse employees who each have different thought processes and backgrounds gives you access to their various strengths and abilities you did not have before. 2) Understand Other Points of View As marketers, we have all seen our fair share of cringe-worthy ads. Marketing blunders like the Chevy Nova (Laughs in Spanish), Lady Friendly Doritos, or Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner ad could all have been avoided if there had been a Spanish speaker, woman, or African American present in the meeting. By maintaining diversity in the office, companies can go from making marketing blunders to creating meaningful brands that will be remembered for years for their clever solutions. 3) Improve Existing Techniques Would you recreate the wheel if you believe you could make a faster wheel? Of course you would! However, our corporations today are plagued by uniformity: the belief that there is only one way to be, one way to do things, and one way to achieve. However, any company who has invested in inclusion and diversity will argue uniformity is constraining. By investing in the diversity of your employees, you are also investing in the diversity of thought within your office. You will quickly realize there are a hundred and one ways to reinvent the wheel, each one better than the one before. Diversity inspires creativity and will serve as a catalyst for efficiency and improvement. 4) Cultural Relevancy An article by Forbes recently stated, “If you want black audiences, give them a seat at the table.” Well it might not be a surprise that this is the case for every demographic: women, Hispanic, LGBT, Asian, you name it. In today’s market, consumers value diversity and will reward brands that are transparent and champion diversity in the office, while punishing brands that don’t. Therefore, diversity has become a principle that any ethical brand should promote because consumers know. Diversity within the office place is not only an asset to improve diversity of thought, it is a demand that consumers are requiring now before engaging with a brand. By championing diversity and hiring diverse employees, companies are finding new ways to achieve their goals through practices introduced through new diverse ideas. Ready to take diversity initiatives to a whole new level? Give us a call and we would be happy to share how diversifying your office might help you reach your highest potential. The New Year is a time to ring in new opportunities and new resolutions. Millions of employees will come back to the office with ideas of how they can improve their productivity, performance, and personal lives. However, they should not be alone in achieving their work goals and personal goals. As the saying goes, “it takes a village.” Managers and coworkers are the perfect motivators to turn the office into a place of encouragement and celebration. In January we will set off on a three part journey on how to encourage your employees to be their best in and out of the workplace, how to set goals, and how to help your employees stay on track.
First thing’s first, you have to prepare yourself, and the office, for transformation in the New Year as well as set aside a “Make it Happen” Fund. As an executive, you have the power to empower your employees to be the best they can be. Therefore, before you ask your employees to set their goals, it is important to take these steps to maintain their motivation throughout the year. 1) Make it Relevant Set your own goals for the team before you ask them to define their goals. As a leader and executive, your vision guides the goals and tasks for the rest of your team. If you don’t have a clear vision of where you see the company going, your employees will find it difficult to create goals that are relevant to the direction of the company. Setting congruent goals is the fastest method to achieving success in the New Year. Therefore, as the director of marketing, call a meeting of the entire marketing department to express your goals of creating a product line that will create rapid in an emerging multi-cultural market rather than increasing efforts in the general market. By defining this goal, your employees are able to make goals based around marketing campaigns toward that particular consumer group instead of what they may have previously had in mind. 2) Make it Personal Many managers like to promote the idea that “work life and personal life should remain separate.” However, this ideology does not prove effective. Your employees are people, and their personal life is just as important as their work life. Therefore, make it a point to encourage their personal goals just as much as their work goals. Encourage your employees to challenge themselves. Schedule a meeting once a month to check in on their work goals, but do not forget to also grab coffee with them once a quarter to ask about their personal goals too. Many employees may be training for a marathon, getting married, or saving up for a dream vacation. Take the time to discuss those goals with them, and recognize that to your employees their personal goals may be more important than what is going on at work. 3) Make it Visible This may be the most important step of them all. Make your employees goals visible somewhere in the office. Schedule a two hour meeting where your team can make a dream board with both their personal goals and work goals. Afterward hang it in the office to remind your employees of their goals. After all, twelve months is a long time to be working on a goal and you do not want your employees to forget about their goal by March. By making your employees goals visible and known, you are turning coworkers and managers into accountability partners and encouragers. 4) Make it Manageable In the same meeting encourage your employees to make a month by month plan of milestones they plan to accomplish by a certain date. This will let your employees have mini-goals that are more manageable than the big goal itself. The digital marketing team may want to increase impressions by 15% by the end of the year. Therefore, they should set their mini-goals to increase impressions by 1.25% a month, or about 4% a quarter. The same goes for personal goals. If Shannon wants to move into a bigger apartment by October, she should set her budget by February, pack by June, and buy by September to move in October. 5) Make it Happen Reward your employees for reaching their work goals and personal goals by helping make the final goal happen. How you make it happen depends on you, but every goal has a milestone that you can help with. One way is to set aside a “Make it Happen Fund” for your team’s goals. If John is training to complete an Iron Man, pay for the registration fee. If Taylor finally booked her dream vacation give her a few extra days off to enjoy it. If Jamie reached her sales goal, pop some office Champagne to celebrate. Every goal reached is deserving of celebration and encouragement. Celebrating goals will encourage your employees to set even greater goals, boost office morale, and increase productivity throughout the year. From everyone at DCAProsearch, cheers to a prosperous 2019 and we cannot wait to celebrate you achieving your goals throughout the New Year. We are always available to help you achieve your multicultural talent and recruiting goals whenever the need may arise. To request a search, or let us know what kind of talent you are searching for in the New Year, contact us so we can help you achieve your 2019 talent needs. After a career spanning 20 years it can be difficult to summarize all your experience on one sheet of paper and, actually, we don’t recommend you do this. This can be especially challenging for top level executives with a diverse skill set and multiple responsibilities. However, breathe a sigh of relief because you do not have to put every single thing you have done on your resume nor is there a rule that it must be on a single page. Saying that, we don’t recommend you go over 3 pages. The most important thing to remember when crafting your application materials is that quality beats quantity. Take a hard look at your current resume and identify what is missing and what can be removed. It may even be useful to completely start your resume from scratch to allow you to rethink your brand and expertise.
When choosing what to include, make sure you first understand where you have been in your career, where you are, and where you want to go. 1) Identify the experiences relevant to where you want to go The majority of Americans in the work force will begin their career in one area of business, and find themselves working in a completely separate area ten years later. One of our executives, Anita, for example began her career in advertising at a mid-sized agency and now is the Vice-President of Diversity and Inclusion at a large company. Even though she was a successful advertiser, not all her experience was relevant when she began to focus on recruiting multicultural talent. The first thing Anita did was create a “You Need, I Have” form. In this form she researched all the skills her prospective employer was looking for in a Diverse Talent Manager and identified the skills she currently had that met those needs. She then used this insight to highlight those relevant skills on her resume, while removing skills that were not as valued in her new role. 2) Include your most recent positions This may go without saying. However, many executives forget to include the positions they held before their promotion to the C-Suite when the promotion came from within the company. Before Anita became the Vice-President of Diversity and Inclusion at her company, she was a director and manager. Employers want to know about that experience too, and trace your journey to the top. Your resume should tell recruiters the story of how you came to where you are today. Our suggestion is to include your most recent THREE positions, and an earlier position only if it is different from the other positions and relevant to where you want to go. Don’t include too much information on the positions that have nothing to do with the job you are interviewing for. Do include more detail, especially measurable results, on jobs that are in line with the position you are interviewing for. 3) Assign consultant positions under one Job Heading When you have worked more than 20 years, there are times that you probably consulted between jobs or opted to have that flexibility for personal reasons. It’s best to include them all under one job heading so they appear as one job versus 2-5 different jobs. Include them all within the one time period starting with the starting month/year of the first freelance position to the ending month/year of the last one. You can include month/year (in light gray) per freelance period within the section for each consulting job but don’t include too much detail on those jobs as it will make the resume too lengthy. Just include main points that would be suitable for the position you are now looking for. 4) Highlight special skills and projects Although most people summarize their resume to include 4-8 bullet points per job, we know that you do so much more than that. You have worked on countless projects and tasks that may fall out of what you do on the day to day. If any of these projects or experiences are extremely noteworthy to the position you are applying for, put it on your resume. As recruiters we like to see that you did more than what you were responsible for on the day-to-day. We are going to use Anita as our example again. While she was at the advertising agency, a client tasked her to create a campaign to attract Hispanic and African American markets. The campaign was so successful that it launched her passion for diversity and inclusion and caught the eyes of her new employer when they read it on her resume. 5) Make yourself more than an employee Most executives will often find themselves doing more than just one job. They will sit on the boards of non-profits, engage in philanthropy, or hold advising positions at other companies. As recruiters we want to know about these positions too. Your resume is your story, and we know you are a lot more than just your job. Not only does it help you exhibit your qualifications for the position but it also builds your brand. Expressing these interests and positions on your resume personalizes your application, and makes you stand out above others who only put their job on their resume. When choosing what experience to include on your resume, remember that your resume is your story. Include only what will be relevant to where you want to go and where you have been. However, do not let your resume reduce your story to simply your job. More than anything else, your resume is the biggest tool you have to build your brand. Your resume is one of the best tools you have to help you stand out. Not sure if your resume experience matches where you want to go? Contact Us, and we will be happy to help you advance your career in new ways. |
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April 2020
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