How to Source with One Hand and No Keyboard

How to Source with One Hand and No Keyboard Take off your cape. Put away your super-hero mask. Turn off your x-ray machine. Move your keyboard to one side. Get comfortable and grab yourmouse!  Here are some tips to source with only one hand (on LinkedIn!). Content is king community is queen and so on. Sourcing is crucial to your role as a recruiter/resource.  Keeping up with the latest x-ray commands  and cool tools as well as changes to social tools is just a damn pain! Also, I feel that we spend so much time hunting that we ignore people who may be stood right in front of us. Easy sourcing: Here are some ideas to help you do a bit of easy sourcing â€" it won’t hurt your brain, you don’t need a degree in Google and you only need one hand (and a mouse!). Go to your LinkedIn home page and: Go to All Updates and choose Connections â€" look at who you know and who theyre connecting with â€" people tend to travel in tribes, so it’s likely you’ll be able to connect with your connections’ connections. Go to All Updates and choose Jobs â€" look at the jobs that LinkedIn wants you to see, navigate into them and if you’re lucky the poster will be there (top right) and hey presto you’ll have contacts, and even candidates if you’re looking to source talent in HR / hiring / recruiting / decision making roles. Also check out the Jobs you May be Interested in (Home Page widget AND the Jobs page) Obviously People You May Know  in the top right â€" and don’t forget to press the cross on “randoms” to get rid of them. Also to navigate to See More… People You Recently Visited â€" note the Similar button â€" why wouldnt you want to look at people who LinkedIn considers to be similar to your clients and candidates? Other one-handed sourcing on LinkedIn: Obviously People Who Viewed Your Profile (doh!) Obviously People Also Viewed  (double doh!) This is a really nifty tip! Check out the followers of your clients’ (and competitors’) company pages.  Apparently 71% of company followers are job seekers (nice!). Check out the followers of your own company page to do a bit of one-handed internal sourcing! Actions speak louder than words: …the absolute key to sourcing is this: Proactively source â€" don’t reserve community building for when you have a vacancy or want to canvass a candidate. Do it every day, like clockwork. Be strategic AND tactical. Be relevant â€" try and “stick to your knitting” â€" connect with contacts that will make the LinkedIn algorithm work for you. If you’re a Finance recruiter, connect with Finance people (from gatekeeper to COO), connect with Finance suppliers (they are usually super-networked, connect with Finance LIONs (they’re a “sure thing”), connect with trade bodies in the finance sector, etc… Don’t reserve your theoretical sector-specialisms for face to face meetings â€" demonstrate your specialism with your connection activity. Great contacts beget great connections. And once youve done that, grab your cape, sonic screw driver and get back to the dark art that is sourcing with two hands!

Seven Tips For Getting Good At Spotting Trends - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Seven Tips For Getting Good At Spotting Trends - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career In order to succeed in business you need to anticipate what your market will want or need before its completely obvious to all. Learning to spot trends will give you great insight into your prospective customers needs. It might also lead you to developing a great new idea, product line or a whole new business. Leading entrepreneurs have some surprising uncommon traits. They have an uncanny ability to spot trends. The benefit of  spotting trends for entrepreneurs is rather obvious; If you can predict whats of interest to people, you can tailor your product or service to appeal to your audience and build a following.  What enables some entrepreneurs to be more adept at predicting their markets tastes than others? In many cases it seems trend spotters are similar to inspiring leaders. They both use a different tactic to zoom in on what really matters to people to lure them into their camp.   Know your markets sensibilities Being great at spotting trends and inspiring your audience requires pouring yourself into knowing everything possible about his target audience.  An adept trend spotter will read what his audience reads and watch what they watch. He will follow everything thats relevant to his market to become an expert on what they like and dont like. The trend spotter will also be attuned to his prospective consumers problems, strengths and limitations as well as what they like and dislike about their competitors. Success at spotting a trend that results in developing a hot product could come from having the right timing. It could also come from satisfying a particular unmet need, solving an acute problem or energizing, inspiring and encouraging those who are looking for it. Trend spotters look for common themes across disciplines and are always on the alert for what inspires their audience and what turns them off? They look to see the deeper reasons why people are attracted to a product, service or to a written work? Trend spotters try to uncover the psychological underpinnings behind the attraction to an item. They ask themselves, Does this thing tie into the audience’s value? In Simon Sinek’s book, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Action, he  sheds light on how great leaders tap into peoples psyche to attract them into followers. Sinek says that  great leaders inspire action by inspiring their target population to agree with their values and the purpose behind their product or service. His research places a spotlight on Apple computers, the Wright brothers and Martin Luther King to showcase how people are drawn more to ideas, philosophies, causes and a purpose than to a mere product. Sinek compares Apple and Dell to highlight the success of tapping into peoples beliefs to gain their following. Both companies offer great products but Apple is far more successful due to their approach. Apple says everything we do challenges the status quo; we believe and think differently. Customers largely agree with the companys philosophy and thereby become interested in what the products do for them and then buy Apple products. He calls this the inside out approach to gaining support. These leaders or trend spotters gain influence and acquire followers by making his structure their structure. People are enticed by their product because they can share in the beliefs that are behind it. Entrepreneurs appeal to their audience by creating a buzz around a common value that they both hold in high esteem. They focus on why people do things and why they would relate to the product before telling what it does and how the product or service provider does it. Tune into your customers anxiety, stress and desire for answers and solutions In order to become a top trend spotter, one needs to develop empathy for his audience. Tuning into your audience involves knowing the stressors that are most prevalent in their lives. Focus on becoming aware of the concerns that are top of mind for your audience.   Try to differentiate between universal, cultural, generational and individual struggles. Recognize the limits of their attention span for listening to you or to anyone. Ask yourself, How much time are they willing to give you to hear about a product, service or an idea? The successful entrepreneur recognizes his audience’s primary issues and gives them what they need to resolve their problem. Continuously read about trends Rieva Lesonsky, Co-founder and CEO of  GrowBiz Media, a media and custom content company focusing on small business and entrepreneurship. GrowBiz Media produces the free  TrendCast Newsletter, which highlights the trending information entrepreneurs need to know. She offers some great advice on how to spot trends and encourages people to both read trends and to talk to perspective customers to gain insight into trends. Regularly read the leading publications and websites affecting your business. This could include industry publications, trade association sites, major newspapers, key business magazines, thought leaders and influential bloggers. Review information from a wide variety of sources from international news on down to niche bloggers focused on specific aspects of your industry. Use tech tools like RSS feeds, e-mail newsletters or Twitter to keep on top of it all and get the information you want delivered to you when you want it. Talk  to your prospective customers Lesonsky says, Use social media or online surveys to get input on what customers are thinking, buying, craving and doing. Use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to identify key influencers and trend setters in your target markets. In addition, pay attention to ratings and review sites not just what customers are saying about your business, but what they’re saying about your competition. Know your customers diversions The savvy entrepreneur taps into what his audience likes and finds a way to give them a new arena to lose themselves. This could take form in a new app, a power tool, cosmetics, a funny movie or dramatic play. He knows his audiences preferences so well that he can predict the particular activity hed choose for a release. Trend spotters will look for the groups and associations their audience follows and get to know the escape activity that piques their interest. Most decisions are “Predictably Irrational” Trying to understand what motivates people to make certain choices is an incredibly complex topic. What we do know is that people’s choices are frequently influenced by factors that are irrational. Therefore, you need to know more about the irrational things that influence a person’s decision in addition to knowing about his personal needs and tastes. Behavioral economist, Dan Ariely’s  book, Predictably Irrational  challenges readers assumptions about making decisions based on  rational thought. Arielys goal, by the end of this book, is to help you fundamentally rethink what makes you and the people around you tick. He presents a wide range of scientific experiments, findings, and anecdotes that are in many cases quite amusing, that  could help you rethink how people make decisions. His insights could also be useful as a background for entrepreneurs. Top trend spotters will be astute at seeing both the rational and the irrational factors that influence decisions. In this way they may be more capable  of predicting what their audience will choose to look at or buy. Ariely sheds light on how irrationality happens the same way again and again and hence, is predictable. If you understand the predictably irrational influences combined with knowing about your audiences most acute challenges and sensibilities you’ll have a better chance for success in launching a new business. Finally, connect the dots   Successful entrepreneurs are able to view all the trends and make a calculation for which one will be most widely received. They delve into a topic deeply to get a proper read on the pulse of a given group. As Dan Ariely explains in his best seller Predictably Irrational, people dont make decisions on cold facts. Theyre influenced by seeming zany and irrational things and make many choices unconsciously. While no one is always correct, (in fact the odds are against us from guessing trends) some people have a better track record for guessing correctly what people want to buy, see and read. It could be a mix of intuition, luck, knowing the predictably irrational things that affect peoples choices and of course as with everything, good timing. Perhaps the people who are most consistent in spotting trends, predicting behaviors and guessing what people want ahead of the rest are able to imagine what others cant imagine even for themselves. They collect relevant data and then read between the lines from what they read and hear to pick up on cues from their audience. The best trend spotters often become well-known entrepreneurs. If you become adept at this you could create products that improve lives and change the world.

Personal Branding Interview Morey Stettner - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Morey Stettner - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Morey Stettner, who is the author of Skills For New Managers, and and the editor of Managing People at Work. In this interview, Morey talks about how to gain confidence in the business world, how to communicate more effectively in the workplace, and much more. How do most people gain confidence in the business world? Most people gain confidence in business by knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Its important to know what you do well and capitalize on it. Its equally important to know what skills you need to improve and take steps to polish those skills. High self-awareness drives confidence. When you can detach yourself from the here-and-now and dispassionately assess what youre doing welland what you need to work onyou command attention and radiate self-assurance. What are your tips for communicating more effectively in the workplace? To communicate better, listen more than you speak. Ask friendly questions that invite others to open up. Ideally, you want to apply the 80/20 rule so that others speak for 80 percent of the conversation and you limit your talking to the remaining 20 percent. If someone makes a point, tells a story or expresses an opinion, stoke your curiosity and ask at least one follow-up question. That builds trust and rapport. Motormouths or me-based personalities, by contrast, tend to drive away potential allies by hogging conversations and ignoring others comments. How do you persuade your boss to take on a project outside of your normal responsibilities? Persuade your boss by encapsulating the three most powerful reasons why you are the best person to take on the project. By thinking in threes, you provide enough support to substantiate your argument without going overboard and rambling. Better yet, you show your boss that youve mapped out what you want to say in a coherent manner and youve isolated three compelling, undeniably persuasive points that are tough to rebut. What are some issues people face when they present to their colleagues and management? Some traps that presenters face include babbling and over-explaining, failing to organize their remarks and relying too much on slides. When you give a presentation, less is more. Begin by previewing what youre about to cover and then stick to a simple outline in which every sentence advances you toward your conclusion. Resist the urge to indulge in tangential thoughts or long-winded asides. Organize your speech in three sections or chapter headings. And limit your use of slides so that youre not dumping data on bored listeners. Dole out juicy tidbits of hard-hitting information in your slides, not thickets of text that confuse and disorient the audience. What is your best advice for newly appointed managers? New managers need to listen and learn. Dont rush to prove your greatness; first, ask lots of intelligent questions on how people excel, what systems they favor, insights theyve gained, etc. Dont volunteer your opinions; if asked, give succinct views and prepare to back them up. Dont pretend to know more than you do; admit what you dont know and let others educate you. Morey Stettner is a writer and communication-skills consultant in Portsmouth, NH. Hes the author of five books including Skills For New Managers (McGraw-Hill), and The Art of Winning Conversation (Prentice Hall), and the editor of Managing People at Work. He also writes articles for Investors Business Daily that run every Monday on IBDs Managing for Success page. A dynamic speaker and seminar leader, he has led hundreds of training programs across the United States on topics such as sales skills, public speaking, and attentive listening. He graduated magna cum laude from Brown University.

How to get more done when you feel stuck

How to get more done when you feel stuck This post is about productivity. I have to tell you that because this is a career blog and career blogs need topics that fall into the career space. You cant have a blog that doesnt have a topic. Even Mark Cuban, who seems to not have a topic because he writes about basketball and  colleges and eating at the iHop still has a clear topic: How to make a ton of money. 1. Life is easier if you embrace hardship instead of trying to avoid it. My blog topic is not how to make a ton of money. It used to be. When I was in my twenties, and early 30s, my focus was money.  But somewhere I realized that I wanted an interesting life more than money. I think it was when I was at Ingram Micro, a Fortune 50 company, and I was blown away at how boring and risk averse everyone was. The Fortune 50 is a study is seeking safety in product lines, in workplace practices, and in a stable life. I am not the safety-seeking type. So I stopped trying to make a lot of money and started trying to do interesting things, and thats when my career really took off. Investors love interestingness. 2. Focus on being interesting and then hurdles are predictable. I found that if I focused on making my life interesting, money came. But if I focused on money, I got stuck.  So I have spent the last ten years understanding the difference between going after money, going after happiness and going after interestingness. I have found that I am most productive when I follow my instinct for what will be interesting because people are more focused and more engaged when they do what interests them. A lot of you will say you want to do what you love, but your vision of doing what you love is really limited. Like, you think you want to be a yoga teacher, but the yoga business is mostly about marketing yet  you have this idea in your head that teaching yoga is interesting. But teaching yoga for someone else is being a worker bee and its working for free. Teaching yoga in your own studio is mostly a marketing job. (Even Mark Cuban says this, actually: follow your action not your passion.) So let me be clear that choosing interesting work is difficult. Its the hard path. It is not interesting to do something easy because if its easy, you already know the path and the outcome. How could that truly be interesting? You are lying to yourself. 3. If you admit youre a cliche, you can use tried and true methods to help yourself.   When I launched Brazen Careerist, it was a blog network. I had already found my fifty favorite Gen Y bloggers and I had my editor, who is still my editor, edit those bloggers. For the most part, he hated editing the bloggers.This was before he got medication so he was also surly and biting, and one of his biggest complaints was about posts that began by explaining why the person has not written in so long. Because of this I am very careful not to open a post with that topic. Instead, I am slipping it in here, in the middle. I have written about my life for my whole life. It just happens that its my job now, but Id do it anyway. This is probably not goodfor one thing, it pegs me as very likely to kill myself. For another thing, when I am uncertain about my life I shut down. In my webinar about how to write about your life, I realized, while I was teaching it, that writing about your life means facing your life.  I am having a hard time facing my life now. 4. Be clear on what you hate about yourself. You have to see it to move past it. Its a pattern. Here are the times I had a hard time writing about my life: When I had a baby. (I started republishing old posts and I got fired for breaking my contract.) When I launched a company. (I wanted to write about entrepreneurship but I got scared that people only wanted to read about climbing a corporate ladder.) When I moved to the farm. (I wanted to write about the farm but I thought people only liked me because I was from LA/NY and other big cities where Ive landed.) Now. When Im scaling back my career to homeschool my kids. I cant even write that without feeling a little sick. I dont want to face that. So I dont want to write anything because I dont want to see it. I coach so many people who want to have kids and are feeling sick about the idea of scaling back their career. They feel sick about the idea of being grouped with stay-at-home moms instead of high-achieving men. I get it. I feel that way too. The first thing I noticed, in fact, when I started homsechooling, was that I miss being surrounded by men. Because thats what happens when you have a big career and you are a woman. Most women drop out, and its the men that are left. You get used to being surrounded by men. 5. You are not special. You are like other people. So find people who are like you.   But luckily, people send me tons of links about scaling back careers, and I am getting confident in my choices. Here are some of my favorite links: The Harvard Business Review says that its not the women who need to lean in, its the men. The author, James Allworth, points out that all the studies about what makes a fulfilling life show that its relationships and not work. So to tell people to forgo relationships in order to work more is absurd. Sheryl Sandbergs book assumes that women are not in high-powered positions because women make the wrong choices. But people who choose to have a smaller career and pay attention to family relationships are making better choices, and men need to lean in to their relationships. Another link that makes me happy is that the best educated moms are the ones most likely to opt out. When I saw the headline it made immediate sense to me. Those are the moms most likely to feel that they have a choicebecause their husband earns enough money and they themselves are capable of generating income from home. The research also makes sense because the best educated moms are the ones most likely to be able to process the data that explains why its not a given that everyone should try to have the biggest possible career. Its new data and its difficult to process after twenty years of feminist diatribes about the glass ceiling. But the smartest women are the first to go against the grainwhich is what opting out is, since the media does not encourage it. Heres what Ive learned from not writing about my life because I was scared you wouldnt like it: Ive learned that you dont care what I do in my life as long as Im interesting. If I am doing something thats scary, and I tell you, then you can identify with me when you do something scary. What this community is, really, is people who want to do something scary. Because life is very, very boring if we dont scare ourselves.

Using Margins For a Resume

Using Margins For a ResumeThe use of margins for a resume is something that many people do not think about, but they are vitally important when it comes to the way your resume looks. While all resumes should be in some sort of format, those with paragraphs of information on them tend to look good. You need to ensure you use a format that will help you draw the reader's eye and draw their attention to the important parts of your resume.There are lots of other ways to do this as well, but the outline of a resume can be used effectively to grab attention and to draw in the reader. They tend to be separated by paragraphs that are well defined and provide important information that needs to be included. Margins for a resume are therefore important, but it is not so important that they have to be used.Some people make use of them to bring out their personality or their personal preferences, but they are not necessary. What you are looking for is a format that grabs the reader's attention a nd will then be able to let them know what you have to offer them. This way they can start reading your resume right away, without having to worry about it.Not all resumes are going to be the same, and this means that your margins for a resume should also be able to adapt to the job seeker's needs. Most people tend to add a little extra space to the left or the right hand side, but they do not usually take the time to add more than that. In most cases, you want to be able to customize this with the job seeker.If you are concerned about the length of the resume, it is possible to add these spaces so that they add up to a maximum of five lines. For example, you could add a couple of spaces at the top and the bottom of your resume, but leave the first few paragraphs intact. The space you leave at the top will make it easier for the reader to read and see what you have to say.If you are looking for something that will get attention quickly, you may want to choose short paragraphs instea d of long ones. Most people do not put any kind of spacing between paragraphs, and this makes them harder to read. When you are choosing a format, you do not want to compromise the job seeker's ability to get to their point quickly and efficiently.Finally, you want to consider the font of the format. Do not worry too much about the color or the look of the font. Just make sure that the font is professional and that it matches your format of choice.Using margins for a resume does not mean that you cannot design your own format. You can make use of the basic formats offered by Microsoft Word, but if you are looking for something unique, you can try a program like Microsoft Publisher. This will allow you to create templates and layouts for different formats, and you can even change the colors to fit the background color of your resume.

Event of the year WorldBlu live 2008 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Event of the year WorldBlu live 2008 - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog This years WorldBlu Live conference has just opened for registration. It takes place on October 16-17 in New York. This event is about democratic workplaces and you will: Learn best practices and leadership lessons from the CEOs of some cool democratic organizations. Discover how running a business democratically is a key to being happy at work AND making more money. For me, this is THE conference event of the year and I really look forward to both speaking and participating. The last WorldBlu conference in Washington DC was one of the most inspiring business conferences I have ever attended I have never seen so many cool, fascinating and fun people gathered in one place. Read more about the event here and register here. If you register before May 1st, you save a cool $300. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

Make your body happy at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Make your body happy at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Imagine working closely together with a colleague who complains all the time: when you have been using the mouse for five minutes he will start bitching, and when you?ve been sitting for half an hour he starts yelling at you. This is the case for many people every day ?only the colleague is closer than you think ?it?s your own body. If you have office work, chances are that you regularly experience one or more of the following: Headaches Upper back and neck pain Lower back pain ?Mouse arm?? General stiffness and aching What?s this? You love your job so much. You jump out of bed in the morning shouting ?Yes! I?m going to work today!?? And your body starts giving you all sorts of complaints. Why? Well, let?s take a look at what kind of work your body was originally designed to do. 10.000 years ago, before the beginnings of any kind of civilization and through ages of natural selection, the human body (and mind) had become highly specialized in the art of hunting and gathering. Life was all about finding ?and killing- food, and avoiding becoming food. If food became scarce, then you moved to find it elsewhere, living a nomadic lifestyle. Everyday, all day, nothing could be obtained without movement. Physical activity was essential. If you couldn?t move ?you died. Nowadays most of us can easily live our lives with a minimum of physical activity, thanks to cars, elevators, e-mails, pizza delivery and the like. So why all these physical complaints and ailments? Your body should be happy to get off the hook, shouldnt it? Well, it isn?t, and here?s why: Your body likes to move, and whats more, it needs to! It is its nature, you might say. Strapping your body behind a desk with minimum movement for 8-10 hours a day is going against nature, on the physical level. And going against nature makes you? well, unhappy. Just like your mind grows dull without intellectual stimulation, your emotions wither away without love and companionship ? so your body will start aching and complaining when you don?t exercise it. So, what to do, to make our closest colleague happy? Start moving! Here are some suggestions: 1: Remember: moving is fun! If you have forgotten, then it is time to rediscover the joy of physical activity. Play more. Organize office chair races, or give lunch break dance lessons. 2: Relax! If you cultivate a relaxed and easy-going attitude, then you are more likely to avoid stress. Without stress you will be less tense, and you are able to feel your bodily needs; also the need to move. 3: Use any excuse to get out of the chair. Go see people instead of calling or e-mailing. Deliberately move your most used files to the opposite wall in the office. 4: Move for no reason. For instance, decide to do phone calls balancing on one leg. 5: Buy furniture that invites you to move about. Like elevating desks and gym-balls to sit on. Though apparently bean-bag chairs can go horribly wrong in the workplace: 6: At least twice a week, do a proper work-out. Doesn?t matter what kind as long as you are sweating like a pig and having lots of fun. If you haven?t found your fun work-out yet, keep looking. It?s out there! The pay-off? Reducing any physical pains will of course improve your productivity and concentration. Also, more movement increases your physical energy, which in turn makes you more motivated and more positive. Happy moving! This post was written by physiotherapist Nicolas Kjerulf (yes, thats my brother!) Nicolas promotes health in companies in and around Copenhagen, Denmark. You can see his website here (in Danish) and you can contact him at nicolas@kjerulf.com. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related