The Headhunters Guide to Cold Calls

The Headhunters Guide to Cold Calls So far, weve gone round the world in 80 stereotypes, and exposed the pranksters and prats who hold our careers in their hands. Whatever could be left? The Cold Call! Most of you reading this will have been on the receiving end of a cold call at some point in your life (and several of you will have made them yourselves), but how many of you know the lengths a headhunter will go to in order to reach you?  Naturally, your author being the dignified and honest professional that he is had to shop around for a few stories this time, but first a few tips on how to avoid embarrassing yourself when making a cold call. 1) Dont say its personal Boys and girls, I regret to confirm that the personal assistants (PAs) of this world have now cottoned on to this once unbeatable strategy saying its a personal call. They do not believe you any more than those rich relatives you only speak to once a year when youre short on cash do when you tell them youre just calling to say hello. Only the most clueless of receptionists, gate-keepers, guardians of the Underworld (whatever were calling them these days) would accept that you know your target personally, especially since youre having to go through a random switchboard to get hold of them. You might as well say youre calling to inform them theyve won the Nigerian lottery. 2) Dont say youre returning their call The last time I overheard someone try this, it led to a bizarre back and forth with the PA they were trying to get past which succeeded only in making them look like they were following up on an imaginary conversation that never happened with someone they didnt know. It went something like this: Headhunter:  Can I speak to Mr X please? PA:  Whos calling please? Headhunter:  My name is XXX and I am returning his call PA:  Where are you calling from? Headhunter:  I just got a message to call him back and this is the only number that was given. PA:  What is the call regarding please? Headhunter:  How should I know? Hes the one who called me. 3) Dont pretend to be fluent in a language you dont speak Youd think this one would be a no-brainer. Alas, fellow headhunters, there was a time when even your distinguished author believed that his A-level Spanish, which he hadnt practiced for almost ten years, would sustain him in a sales call to a telecoms specialist in Madrid. It didnt. Mainly because most of the language required for this conversation was technical terminology that I hadnt even mastered in English yet. Funnier still was the resolute belief of some of my neighbouring consultants that the key to overcoming the language barrier was speaking as loudly and slowly as possible. Add a bad phone line to the equation and you got the hilarious sight of them bellowing the same phrases down the phone for 30 minutes with all eyes on them as an office of 70 people was forced to wait for the call to end before resuming their own work.  Fail! The Success Stories A cynical person might refer to these anecdotes as the  spin stories, the trick stories,  or even  the outright lies stories, but the bottom line is: this is what got the job done for our (anti) heroes, so Im going to call them the  success stories. I asked several of my friends from the industry (who shall remain nameless) to send me the best lines they had ever used to acquire their target. Here are some of my favourites: The Doctor: I pretended to be a Dr James Gray who had significant and confidential health news for the Chief Tech Officer of a major telecommunications company. This actually fooled his secretary who apparently kept on asking him what health problems he had for months afterward. This still isnt as bad as another chap named Gary whose alter-ego was Gupta Singh who was a pushy and annoying Asian that would not take no for an answer. Direct quote: Its easier to be rude if you sound foreign. Perhaps the most entertaining part of The Doctors contribution was when I challenged him on the ethics of his approach and that of his colleague, to which he responded: Well it was 2005 and I take no responsibility for Gary! The Wrestler: This friend of mine and his team decided to make cold calling more interesting by challenging each other to name drop professional wrestlers in their conversations. The premise of the game, as he explained, was: Who could name the most pro-wrestlers in one lead stripping exercise. For example: Interesting you worked for Jimmy Jib IT Solutions Ltd. I work with Randall down there, Randall Savage was he your manager down there? Killing Me Softly: I vividly remember one Friday afternoon where my team and I decided to play a little game of or own: who could insert a song title into their cold call and make it sound completely natural? The winning song proved to be Killing me Softly thanks to this conversation: Headhunter:  Is that Dave? Dave:  Speaking. Headhunter:  Hi Dave. My name is XXX and Im calling from XXX. I found your CV online today and think youd be perfect for the job Im working on are you looking for work right now? Dave:  No, Im not. Sorry. Headhunter:  Oh no, Dave, mate, youre killing me softly here. Are you sure? Unfortunately, Rasberry Beret proved to be less fruitful (no pun intended) and ended with the consultant hanging up on his customer half way through the call when he couldnt bring himself to finish the job. Where was I in all this? I was the one picking the song titles for other people to say. Hey, I was bored, not stupid. Fire: The worst cold call trick I have ever heard used is someone posing as the flatmate of the person they want to reach, calling to tell them that their house is on fire and they could not get through to them on their mobile. Practice this one at your own peril boys and girls because God help you when you actually get through to that person and you have to explain who you really are. Think outside the box yes! Pretend the box is on fire no! Thats it from me until next time. Add your own stories below!

How To Show The Value Of Your Work-Life Balance - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How To Show The Value Of Your Work-Life Balance - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Sometimes your ability to manage your time well may look a lot like a family-friendly schedule. But when you’re applying for a new job, or appealing to a new boss for a continuance of your flexible work arrangements, you may want   to paint it in the colors of productivity, focus and connections, not children who need   taxiing to tennis lessons. “You don’t lead with work-life. You first sell yourself on your capabilities,” said Ellen Ernst Kossek, a Michigan State University professor of organizational behavior and author of The CEO of Me. “The deal is for you and your talent and what you bring” to your future employer, not for your zeal to foster or train dogs or spend time with your nieces or children. Sometimes what you bring is a keen ability to focus and complete tasks quickly and effectively, so you can leave every day by 4:30. In a job interview, you’d tell about your time management skills and your efficiency, and  how that led to superior results for your current boss. So here’s five ways to make your flexible schedule sound like a smart management strategy: 1. I am incredibly productive and often finish work in six and a half hours when others may take eight or nine. 2. I set clear priorities and help my team manage theirs deliberately. 3. I arrange deadlines that give me time for interruptions and delays. 4. My laser focus allows me to get out of the office and be involved in community activities. 5. My personal connections have proven beneficial to my employer. Show how the PTA has helped your company promote a new line or how a bicycling group member just placed a $25,000 order. It helps to understand the culture where you hope to land: Do they make a lot of work-life deals and special arrangements for many people, or do they have a pattern and one approach to it? Understand their approach to customizing work and finding and retaining really talented people, said Kossek. Kossek and a McGill University professor have presented a paper at the Academy of Management that is also under review for publication. It covers the main reasons managers are willing to “break the mold on what is an ideal worker” and support what she calls “customized work.” This means hiring or promoting someone with young children, or giving a career-making assignment to someone who is outside the traditional model for the organization, or granting other work-life accommodations.   The three reasons managers support these are that person’s “exceptional talent,” including deep knowledge or a strong connection to clients; their flexibility on flexible arrangements and the notion that they’re in a “conducive job,” which varies from firm to firm but usually means a non-core function, she said. The bottom line: If you have that kind of talent and flexibility on flexible arrangements, then it’s fine to say “I’m looking for a 40-hour a week gig” or ” I am interested in this job, provided I can live X.”  Make sure though you sell yourself and your talents first. Author: Vickie Elmer regularly contributes articles on careers and small business to the Washington Post. She has collected a slew of journalism awards, large and small. Her career and workplace articles also have appeared in Fortune, Parents, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, the Financial Times, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday and many more. She has been called “dazzling,” “incredibly competitive” “creative” and “prolific and feisty” by those who work with her. Elmer is the mother of three children and the co-owner of Mity Nice, a start-up that employs teens to sell Italian ice and sweet treats from a shiny silver cart in Ann Arbor, Mich. An active volunteer, she encourages kindness and creativity and embracing change, and she blogs and tweets under the moniker WorkingKind.

Battle cry against power tripping

Battle cry against power tripping Heres a new word for the workplace: Rankism. File it in your brain next to racism and sexism. And brace yourself for a big change at the office, because rankism is another kind of discrimination we should not tolerate. Whats rankism, or rankist behavior? It is hiring an intern and ignoring her all summer. Or pointlessly yelling at the receptionist about a manager who is late. Or a professor taking credit for a graduate students research. All these are examples of people who think they can treat someone disrespectfully because of their lower rank. The Devil Wears Prada has tons of juicy examples ? as well as snappy fashion and a happy ending to make the story acceptable. But rankist behavior is never acceptable. And Robert Fuller, the man who came up with the word rankism, is on a mission to end it. His big idea is that people have a right to be treated with dignity no matter where they are in the pecking order. Hes part of whats become known as the dignitarian movement. (Hes written two books on this topic: Somebodies and Nobodies and All Rise.) Wondering if youre at a job where youre treated with dignity? You need to receive recognition, humane treatment and a living wage. If your job doesnt qualify, you need to speak up, which is hard to do, but having a word to identify the problem is half the battle. Vocabulary changes thing, says Fuller. The Feminine Mystique referred to the problem without a name. Sexism was not a word until five years after that book came out. Once the word sexism was available women had a weapon to make demands. Fuller wants you to take cues from the success of that movement. Say, Hey, thats rankest, the same way youd say, Thats sexist. But dont yell: Having the words rankist and rankism will give workers in every line of action a battle cry. They wont scream at the top of their lungs. They will mention it calmly and cause the person on top to look at their actions. Here are five more steps you can take to combat rankism in your own work life: 1. Get a good read on potential managers. Management sets the tone of respect or disrespect at work. So sniff out offenders before taking the job. Vanessa Carney works at Lets Dish, a food preparation company. The management team here is genuine, says Carney, The people who run this company have a good attitude and it trickles down. Carney was especially impressed when the owner of the business sat down with her after a few months to find out what, exactly, she wanted to do in her career. 2. Let people know that rankism matters. Probably those behaving this way are not even conscious that theyre doing it. In one study about harassment, most people who were disrespectful were not aware of itthey thought they were making jokes at the time. They are misguided comedians, says study author Catherine Hill, director of research at American Association of University Women. She also found that people respond to what they perceive as cultural norms. So speak up when you see it, even if you are not on either side of the exchange. 3. Dont accept rationales for rankism. Common refrains are This is the only way the business can work, (to justify long and unpredictable hours), or I got through this so you can too, (to justify hazing-like practices). Joanna Vaillant is a management consultant a position known for difficult work conditions. But she did research to find a consulting company that respects its employees: Boston Consulting Group. She recommends talking to people who work in the company about the company. In business school I talked to classmates who worked at different companies, says Vaillant. And she chose well. She recently got married and received assignments that would allow her time and headspace to prepare for that big day. 4. Take a bad job. Working at a low-level job is not just a headache, its an integral part of your personal development. A big barrier to fighting racism and sexism is that if you are white you dont know what its like to be black, and if you are male you dont know what its like to be female. But everyone can work in a low-level job especially in the service industry where the exposure to rankest behavior from customers is huge. 5. Consider leaving. One of the scariest things about demanding change at the workplace is the prospect of getting fired. But young people today those invariably filling up the entry-level positions switch jobs often. So the risk of offending your current boss for speaking out against rankism does not seem that big a deal. The workplace is ripe for eradicating rankism. The youngest workers are optimists about their ability to change the world and passionate about valuing diversity. Also, in poll after poll, young people report less interest in money and more interest in the quality of work and the quality of life work affords. So it makes sense that now is the time for the dignitarian movement, and we should all jump on board.

Communicating Your Companys Social Responsibilities to Enhance Employer Brand

Communicating Your Company’s Social Responsibilities to Enhance Employer Brand With businesses increasingly competing for top talent, Corporate Social Responsibility could be the deciding factor for a potential new employee considering applying for a role in your company. Research from Cone Communications revealed that for 58% of employees, from all generations, CSR is an important element of consideration when choosing a job, sometimes even more so than the proposed salary. Considering how important this is becoming, are you communicating enough about the values and ethics behind your business? As well as an official CSR strategy document, other pieces of business information also reveal a lot about the socially responsible ways an organization operates. Here are some examples which can be showcased across websites, social media, PR, marketing assets and recruitment materials. These will all help to give potential employees a better understanding of how your organization considers the interests of its employees, customers, stakeholders, and communities plus the environmental and social consequences of its business activities. Mission statement and purpose Your organization’s mission statement can communicate a wider social purpose as well as business objectives, and research by Deloitte shows that ‘mission-driven’ businesses enjoy 30% more innovation and 40% more engagement from employees. As an example, Starbucks mission statement is ‘To inspire and nurture the human spirit â€" one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time’. Here at Pure, we highlight our overall purpose, which is to contribute to the economic growth of our region and to make a difference in people’s lives. This reveals how our team gets to go beyond just recruitment and be involved in added value initiatives and career development programmes which help businesses and candidates to thrive. Company values and behaviors Company values give a real sense of how an organization conducts responsible and ethical relationships with its people, customers, suppliers, and stakeholders. Virgin shares its values on the recruitment section of its website, which are: ‘We are delightfully surprising, red hot, straight up whilst maintaining an insatiable curiosity, giving a heartfelt service and creating smart disruption.’ It also goes on to share more information through a list of company ‘Behaviours’ which include ‘Supportive: We are a family of friendly and inclusive people who pull together and openly help each other’. At Pure, we are also driven by our commitment to deliver against our strong company values of teamwork, quality, innovation, reward, support and delivering the best results. These are at the heart of everything we do, helping us to create a great place to work in which our staff are happy, supported, rewarded and motivated to go the extra mile for our customers. Employee development and welfare Sharing details of how your organization looks after its staff including through physical and mental health support, inclusive career development opportunities and fair, transparent pay, highlights your organization as a business which cares about its workers. Social media is a great platform to share real-life examples of the ‘human’ side of your business. For example, Grant Thornton posts case study examples of employees whose day-to-day lives have really benefitted from being able to effectively juggle work and home because of the organization’s agile workplace culture. These posts generate lots of likes, positive comments, and inquiries about joining the organization. For us, we highlight details of our employee wellbeing policy which includes mindfulness courses, counseling, lifestyle and fitness guidance plus a trained Mental Health First Aider who works with managers to support their teams. Soon we will also be able to update people on our initiative to train a team of e mployees to become Mental Health Champions. They will offer support to employees struggling with mental ill-health and raise awareness of mental health across Pure. Environmental impact A responsible business looks to minimize the impact it has on the environment by reducing its carbon footprint and using green practices. Depending on the nature of the business this could include anything from the use of sustainable materials and local produce through to reduced waste, and energy saving. Here at Pure, our offices focus on recycling as much as possible from paper and batteries through to printer cartridges. To help reduce the combined carbon footprint of our team, as well as supporting physical wellbeing, we also offer a Cycle to Work scheme for our employees. Writing a dedicated environmental policy to be shared externally and internally will highlight how your business has considered its environmental impact across all of its operations. It will also remind both current and future employees of their own individual responsibilities and the role they can play in helping the organization to meet and exceed its green commitments. Don’t forget to also display and prom ote any relevant code of practices the organization follows, whether formal or voluntary, plus any specific industry standards it meets and any environmentally friendly focussed awards or accreditations. Community impact Today’s socially conscious generation are looking to work for businesses that give something back and which support them to do the same. As well as fundraising and donations, look to provide hands-on opportunities for employees to take on volunteer activities. Statistics from Employee Volunteering reveal that 76% of volunteers felt the opportunity had a positive influence on how they felt about their employer. We have seen this first hand here at Pure through our commitment to actively encouraging our colleagues to work together and give back to their local communities. We support our team with paid time off to complete charity challenges, fundraising, and volunteering. Our team’s recent activities include donating time to wrap Christmas presents for Lighthouse Women’s Aid, raising money to put together packages of clothing and food to take to homeless charity The Bus Shelter Ipswich, spending a day painting and decorating with Inspire Suffolk and taking on the accumulator fund raising challenge for Arthur Rank Hospice Charity. When sharing stories about your organization’s community support, also highlight the reason why that particular charity or group was chosen. Was it chosen by employees because it had particular importance to them? Does it align with your business own social values? Or, as with our examples, are they directly within the communities you operate in?

How to Avoid Common Resume Writing Mistakes

How to Avoid Common Resume Writing MistakesWriting a resume can be one of the most difficult parts of getting a job. There are plenty of spelling mistakes, poor grammar and confusing acronyms. Some applicants even fall prey to applying resume writing tips that will make it harder to write a successful resume.If you want to write an effective resume, you need to know how to avoid these common mistakes. The goal is to write a resume that stands out from the rest. A resume that is well written and organized should be able to provide the employers with all the important information they need to make a decision about you. A poorly written resume can certainly backfire on your resume.Professional resume writing software is designed to help you create a professional resume. This software is a great way to get a head start on your resume. While you don't have to use the program all the time, it will help you put together the information for your resume, including the skills and experience yo u have to offer the company. It will also save you the time and frustration of having to hunt down the information yourself.When you begin writing your resume, you want to avoid any mistakes you might make by hand. When you enter text into the program, keep in mind that there is a certain amount of indentation you must maintain. If the company uses specific style guidelines, make sure you follow their rules when writing your resume. For example, companies that follow a wider set of style guidelines may not allow you to use multiple space between each bullet. Again, this will help you avoid the common errors that are so common on a resume.Start out by breaking down your job experience into sections: educational training, work experience, leadership, certifications, awards and responsibilities. Use bullet points to highlight important dates, such as the dates of your certifications, and the dates you left your position. Consider a chronology and then fill in the gaps with your skills and qualifications. Work as though the company were reading a cover letter; write your resume with the company in mind. This will help you avoid the common mistakes of failing to use proper grammar and spellings.Another effective tip for writing a professional resume is to keep your sentences short. Because a professional resume has a lot of information to convey, many people find that they end up spending more time reading over their resume than actually writing it. By breaking down your job history into just the skills and experience you're seeking, you will find that you can write quickly and efficiently. Remember that the process of writing resumes is just like that of writing letters, except the resume should contain your contact information at the top.Another common mistake is to understate your experience or qualification. For example, if you are looking for a job as a medical secretary, try to avoid saying that you have spent thirty years in the field. Instead, say that you have been working as a medical secretary for twenty years.Writing a professional resume is a skill you can practice by writing it yourself and sending it to the potential employer. This will ensure that you do not come across as trying to sell yourself too much. A resume should serve as a personal statement, not as a sales pitch.

Avoid Financial Disasters In The Farming Industry

Avoid Financial Disasters In The Farming Industry You might be surprised to learn that a lot of people these days are entering the agricultural industry. Why is this? Well, the farming industry has been facing a massive shortage of business owners and employees in recent years. This has left the job market wide open for people willing to take a little risk for the potential of large profits. To get started farming, you just need to purchase some land that can be used. There are various options that you can consider for how to use the land you purchase from typical crop farming to tree farming. While there are certainly profits to be made in the farming industry, there are also major financial issues that you must avoid to keep your business healthy. Let’s look at a few of these and make sure they do not impact your model. Illness And Disease This will be particularly relevant if you are farming livestock but it can impact various other types of farms as well, and an example of this would be tree farming. Similar to animals, trees can develop diseases. The issue here is that it can wipe out your stock, which will ultimately cost you thousands. Don’t forget that while it’s tragic when animals get ill, you are still running a business. You do need to consider the financial implications as well. So, how do you prevent diseases impacting your farming business? Well, for tree farming, it’s a matter of making sure that the trees are maintained and managed effectively. This is not a hands-off business model. You will need to check them every day and deal with the signs before they start to spread. For animals, this is largely due to how you manage and keep your livestock. Keeping animals indoors as is common in an intensive farming model does increase the likelihood of animals getting ill and the disease spreading. Damaged Equipment When you set up your farming business, you will need to invest in a range of expensive equipment from machinery to collect the crops or machines to take care of your livestock. It is important that the equipment you invest in does not get damaged as this will lead to expensive repairs or worse, replacements. You can avoid this often by making sure you have the right setup. If you visit this website, for instance, you’ll find that you can purchase support platforms for cone-bottom tanks that are necessary for storing farming chemicals and supplies safely. Fines Finally, do make sure that you are running your farming business ethically. It’s important that you do abide by local laws and regulations and it is worth speaking to a legal adviser during the initial set up of your farm. Farming businesses will often live and die by costs, and a fine can push them beyond the point where they are manageable. We hope this helps you deal with some of the financial issues that you can encounter when running an agricultural company.

5 ways to provide the optimal employee workplace experience

5 ways to provide the optimal employee workplace experience The workplace is transforming at an unprecedented rate. We’ve now entered the cognitive era, where machines have the capacity to learn, reason, and interact with humans. This has resulted in blurred boundaries between humans and technology. But there’s nothing to fear. Humans can now work with and see firsthand benefits from new technologies to achieve more than ever before. In a way, the cognitive era is really the “human era” where work proves to be a more rewarding experience for employees. Because of this, organizations are re-examining their employees’ experiences at work as guidelines for improved job performance and sustained competitive advantage. Employee experience is best defined as an impactful and powerful â€" and ultimately human â€" experience, one in which employees feel inspired to invest more of their entire selves into the workplace. Research shows that if employees experience higher levels of respect and support and a sense of belonging at work, they tend to perform better, are more likely to exert discretionary effort at their jobs, and are less likely to leave companies. “Organizations that provide more positive employee experiences stand to see greater ROI in terms of company success,” said Derek Irvine, vice president, client strategy and consulting at Globoforce. “Employees’ commitment to their organizations increases significantly if they feel a sense of belonging and feel valued.” To improve employee experience, organizations must ask how their cultures can be enhanced to become more human-friendly. Answers can be found in a new study conducted by the IBM Smarter Workforce Institute and Globoforce’s WorkHuman Research Institute which takes into account the experiences of 23,000 employees in 45 countries and territories. The study’s resulting index captures five core facets of the modern employee experience: sense of belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness and vigor. To enhance each of these, the study indicates that company leaders and managers need to provide a high level of clarity and direction. The study also examines organizational practices that drive “humanness” levels at work, including organizational trust, supportive coworker relationships, meaningful work, recognition, feedback and growth, empowerment and voice, and work-life balance. As the study shows, there are several methods to improve employee experience in the workplace: Promote greater positive work experiences to retain talent. Analysis shows employees with less-positive experiences are more than twice as likely to say they want to leave, versus those with much more positive experiences (44 percent vs. 21 percent). Offer recognition programs that provide rewards based on demonstrating core values. Organizations that do so have a considerably higher employee experience index score than those in organizations without recognition programs (81 percent vs. 62 percent). Recognize employees for the good work they do. 83 percent of employees report positive experiences when recognized, compared to 38 percent that are not recognized. Allow employee voices to be heard. Employees who feel their ideas and suggestions matter are more than twice as likely to report a positive employee experience than those who don’t (83 percent vs. 34 percent). Foster team dynamics in the workplace. Employees in teams have more positive employee experiences at work than those who work independently (73 percent vs. 61 percent). We must also recognize the role leaders and managers play in defining employees’ work experiences, and enable managers to design experiences consistent with an organization’s core values. An organization’s actions need to emulate the values it wants its employees to practice as well as nurture an environment that reinforces mutually supportive coworker relationships. This helps employees understand the deeper meaning of their work and how it contributes to the wider organizational purpose and goals. These analyses indicate that more positive employee experiences are linked to better performance, extra effort at work and lower turnover rates. Most importantly, organizations must listen regularly to the voices of their employees to understand the nature of their experiences at work. In doing so, these employee experiences will drive discretionary energy, resulting in the best work of employees’ lives for their companies. Join Dana Manciagli’s Job Search Master Class right now and immediately access the most comprehensive job search system currently available!