Improve Your Social Resume

Technology plays a major role in our lives, so it is essentially, even critical, to use it as a tool to complement our offline activities. While having a proper paper resume is key, recruiters are increasingly going the extra mile to determine if an individual is a right fit for the company based on their social resume.

Social resume is a combination of online profiles under an individual’s moniker, and can consist of multiple platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Depending on the privacy settings, it is easy to find out and determine the personalities behind such profiles with a few clicks. It helps to put a face to the cover letter, and without even having an actual interview, filter out the candidates from their online lifestyle. Whether the employer is looking to headhunt or confirm credentials, one can definitely benefit from having a strong and positive online presence from these tips.

STEER AWAY FROM CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS

While many of us like to separate our personal and working lives, it is easy to mix both of them once they are online. Any public information shared on social networking platforms becomes accessible by anyone, and can paint a whole different picture of the candidate. Although the skill set requirement is met, sharing or posting about such negative practices may be a huge disadvantage. Generally, recruiters dislike behavior that deal with illegal drugs, sexual content, spelling errors, and regular alcohol consumption. If this is part of an individual’s lifestyle, consider a private profile because it can also negatively affect the company’s brand image in the long run.

BE CREATIVE WITH INFORMATION PRESENTATION

There is an information overload online, and one of the ways to beat this is to present such important information creatively. This can help to narrow down the information to focus on certain core aspects or skills, and leaves the employer with a good impression. One of the ways to achieve is to go the extra mile and design your resume, such as presenting the information in pie charts or a landscape graph. These help to form an information landscape that is readily accessible by the recruiters. Another way is to alter the content to suit each company specifically, so that it becomes an unique appeal and memorable design to get into their good books.

HAVE A PROFESSIONAL ONLINE AVATAR OR PROFILE PICTURE

It goes without saying that a good photograph can make all the difference with the attention and likes, but maintaining a professional online avatar or profile image is equally as important, especially for individuals looking to make a good first impression. Photographs with skimpy outfits or questionable activities should generally be avoided as it can cloud the potential of the resume. Instead, consider investing in a professional business photoshoot so that your best appearance is put forward for the company's’ consideration. Other than having proper business attire, a good smile and strong posture will help to convey the individual’s suitability with the company.

Bored of Work – Finding New Excitement

After a few years on the job and that you thought that you have mastered the skills required and that you are doing the same old work every day... Sometimes, the itchiness in you just tell you to move on and find more challenges, something that’s more “exciting” and “better”.

Sit down and really think – you achieve a level of trust with your bosses and colleagues and maintain certain flexibility at work – in terms of schedule and project timeline with colleagues. Imagine stepping into a new environment and having to build relationship and understand the culture and working styles all over again… well, some call that challenges. However, I thought challenges and excitement can be found elsewhere.

PARTICIPATE IN VOLUNTARY WORKS

Here you are, with neighborhood or surroundings with people who are the less fortunate. Don’t let our free time run wild. Use this time to return to the society. Look out for the causes that you feel you can relateand that you do not seek favors in return. Be sure to attend voluntary works with heart to help others or expect nothing in return.

You will get to meet more people, and feel the warmth of the society and people who are going around with you. While you may find slight unhappiness and boredom at work, see the faces of the people you are helping, they will let you forget about unhappiness and you will be looking forward to seeing them for each cause or project you’re supporting.

GO FOR VACATIONS

You have your annual leave to consume yearly. I’m not telling you to use your annual leave all on vacations, but one or two vacations will be sufficient. Go for one that you leave your work behind totally – emails and business calls out of reach. Leave your work to your deputy in-charge or even your covering colleague. Have the trust and confidence that they’ll be following up with your work closely.

Honestly, there will never a “good” time to go for vacations. Every boss will tell you that they need you to be around. I’m sure your boss said that because you have been the person he/she has been relying on but when you start your break, they will respect your absence from work. Come on, he knows it – he yearns for the break too!

DO SOME SMALL SIDELINE

Start a new mini project out of office time. May not be the challenging and big money making project but it’s okay… do a really small one. For instance, picking up a small sale business like selling things off Carousell or assisting wedding photography. Things that are totally unrelated to your office-hour job.

Look, your current job is giving you a stable income and peaceful environment to pick up new skills (with more income)

3 Workplace Traits That Pay Off In The Long Run

It is no secret that there are some common traits in valuable employees that managers and employers sift out. Putting aside education and experience, today's workforce forces us to concentrate on who exactly is working for the company. The personality of the employee becomes more important than their skills, as employees with key qualities will be able to lead, motivate and add value to the company as a whole.

Thus, it is not just important to invest in handy work skills, but also intangible attributes, or also known as “soft skills”. In order to elevate an individual’s worth to the companies and employers, here are some of the soft workplace traits that have become necessary to actively practice.

PATIENCE

Being patience without provocation will pay off, especially when displayed under the right conditions. It is a virtue that is linked to happiness and wisdom, as only with patience, can the other two be sustained and achieved. In order for success to happen, tasks and problems will have to be dealt with effectively and tolerantly, instead of rushing through them. Patience allows this as it encourages an individual to take time to consider the work, and complete them in a calm and logical manner. This is the difference between the employee who finishes fast, but badly, and one who finishes later, but correctly.

PERSEVERANCE

Another important trait is how determined the employee shows himself/herself to be when faced with challenges or tedious orders. Personal tenacity reveals how reliable and responsible the individual truly is, and gives the company a sense of the person’s overall staying power. Being fickle-minded rarely wins points. In order for upper management to consider assigning more duties or a higher position, first they have to be clear about the individual’s resolution to see the job through.

PROACTIVE

Having passion and enthusiasm for work is refreshing, especially if it benefits the company overall. Top employees show a dedicated nature towards their work, and this allows them to be extremely invested in the quality of their tasks. It means that they are not only happy to work, but also willing to go the extra mile to make sure the job is done right. It brings about job satisfaction and can boost the overall work morale, allowing them to be key candidates for leadership roles in the company.

What exactly is the Company Culture?

What exactly is the Company Culture?

We all compare among ourselves, whether is it salary package or how established the companies you are working for. If I know of a friend working at Google, I would immediately be impressed and exclaim “Wow! I bet it must have been amazing there!”. I associate Google with the excellent culture – on the basis that they must have been giving a lot of perks since they are so established and cash rich.

This article is going to change all of that.

Culture is not about perks

Just because a company keep organizing retreats for its employees, throw birthday parties regularly, keep feeding employees with snacks, encourage work life balance and even allow their employees to bring their families and pets to work does not equate a great culture.

Introducing perks is easy, but changing culture is difficult.

Culture is all about conversations

The best way to understand the company’s culture is through interaction with existing employees inside. Not interaction in the form of corporate video, but genuine one to one conversations for people to reveal their deepest thoughts.

Alternatively, you can understand culture through understanding how is the training and development conducted and to understand how often are feedback consolidated by the management.

Culture depends on the management

The Middle management are probably the person who most influences culture in the organization through the decisions that he makes, as well as the environment he is supposed to encourage.

If you get a middle management who always questions, and always ask for revision of proposals – you will likely get an environment where people are not keen to contribute ideas because they feel insufficient. In comparison, imagine if you get a middle management who encourages mistakes so employees are about to learn, and a middle management who always encourages bottom up feedback to further improve himself or to make strategic decisions.

On the contrary, you have the middle management who always encourage meeting to facilitate discussions among the different team members and yet you have idle management who discourages meeting as it feels it affect the team in achieving their deliverables.

It is possible to have different subcultures within the organization

Because the middle management is the one who have the strongest influence in the culture, it is possible to have different subcultures within the organization. You still need your sales people to be in a very performance orientated culture, while you need the marketing team to celebrate innovation and creativity. You also need the Human Resource Department to be precise, and not encourage a culture of allowing mistakes, especially in the payroll department. 

Ultimately, the culture will drive the changes in recruitment, employment branding and most definitely, the attrition rates. This means, that established organizations do not guarantee an awesome culture.

Why a mentorship program is necessary?

It has been a long time established program, but not many companies have executed the mentorship program. Businesses are always keen on capturing more market share, and to find the cutting-edge factors to enhance revenue. If you believe your people are your greatest asset to your company, then you should consider the mentorship program

These are the following benefits:

Foster a stronger team work

There is a common misunderstanding that only managers or high performing individuals can become mentors. This is not the case. Giving a colleague who have more experience, the opportunity to mentor will allow them to establish, connect and deepen their relationship with their peers.

This further enhance the teamwork between the existing teams, where collaboration can be found readily available.

Helps in recruitment & retention

With a strong mentorship program, incumbents into companies can easily have access to advice from the high performing individuals, whom they may identify as role models. This allows the opportunity for new entrants into the company toquickly understand the company’s culture – which are crucial in retaining the right employees.

Through a strong mentorship program, you are attracting the growing population – which is the millennials. This group of people often require themselves to feel empowered, and are looking for people who can guide them in their career paths. If your employees are performing, your organization is performing as well.

If you can provide the constant need for career development and empowerment for this group, you will also lead to the increased retention of this group of employees as well.

Increased morals

Empowered employees who become mentors would feel that they can contribute back to the organization, which increases their self-worth and job satisfaction.

Mentees would feel that knowledge and advice is readily available, which allows  them to execute their duties more confidently, while allowing them the opportunity to develop their interpersonal skills.

What can you do to ensure that your employees are not suffering from burn out?

Experiencing burn out can be constituted by many different factors. The usual factors are extra hours spend at work, the amount of quality of work expected by managers, as well as amount of work that is required to be completed within a short notice.

However, burn out can also be easily associated with employee’s morale – which can consist of unfair sentiments arising from unfair compensation – on whether someone is getting more highly paid, while performing the same duties or the salary is the same, with one having more duties and responsibilities. It can also be associated with poor management and misalignment of direction. To put it simply, imaging redoing a work several times because of changes of instructions by the management.

These are what you can do to ensure your employees are not suffering from burn out:

Listen

Regardless the amount of work load, you should always make time to engage them to prevent burnout from happening. You should listen, whether is it in an actual complain, or through subtle signs like their tone, their frustrations at work. If you do realize that they might be experiencing a burn out, you can allow them a voice to understand the root of the problem.

This strategy works best, if you empower your employees. Let them know you are always there readily available to hear complains and grievances without providing a judgement – and above being a leader, you’re also a friend.

Provide

To be fair to your employees, you should provide avenues for them to raise their unhappiness to you – whether in the form of a regular employee survey, or one to one talks with their leaders. You need to be able to provide them accessible advice and help to complete the tasks given, or a reasonable deadline for any tasks assigned.

You are also able to provide the environment which minimizes burn out – by providing more welfares such as random parties, good food and providing day offs to celebrate company’s successes.

You can also provide employees with the education on what a burn out feels like – so that employees would be more aware, and will take the necessary actions to reduce burn out.

Be Fair

Evaluate yourself. If you are making decisions irrationally, by providing unfair treatments – then you need to be the change. You must recognize effort rationally and to communicate the rationale on why decisions are made (I.e., why did you promote this person), to reduce any tensions arising from inequality.

If your employee is putting in effort, while still not delivering -  it is of no harm to provide encouragement as well and to see how you can help the employee in reaching the organization’s goals.

Things that Makes You Look Unprofessional As Interviewer

As you enter the working society, the thing you have to get through a job is to attend the interview. There are somethings that you could have done and tried to portray the best image of you, and… the interviewer doesn’t seem to reciprocate the same. You are meeting the interviewer for the first time and yes, first impression counts.

During the process of your job search, you’d have probably encountered several things that you felt that the interviewers should not have done. Here’s a few to name and you may notice that interviewers may portray unprofessional ways that you felt that you are not valued during the interview process.

Long Waiting Despite Being on Time

Anyone at work could be tied up or stuck in a meeting for a few minutes when you turn up for the scheduled interview. Yes, it’s a scheduled interview but unforeseen situations may arise. However, if you are left in the meeting room waiting for more than 15 to 20 minutes, yet have no idea why the wait was taking so long… What is the next thought on your mind? – “Is the interviewer serious about my application?”, “Is she testing my patience?”.

Interviewer should feel apologetic for making applicant wait for them too. Always remember that you are not obliged to wait, just because you are the applicant.

Unprepared for the interview

You’ve been invited by the Human Resource personnel for an interview and the interviewer or hiring manager should have already understood your resume and employment background before coming into the room. Don’t be surprised, you’ll encounter interviewer flipping and reading through your details while you are talking to them.

There are interviewers who will come into the room and after you telling them about your background, they will tell you that they are NOT sure what they are looking for exactly. They will ask questions that may not be related to the role that you are applying for. You get all puzzled in the interview and at the end of it, you are still unaware if the role suits you, you are shortlisted.

Interviewers Speak Like They Know All

I always thought that the worst interviewers are those who talk to you like you’re interrogating your employment histories with the whys and later input your personal comments. The interview may take an hour long and you ended the interview not knowing what had went on with the interview session. Was that a lecture session or a job interview?

Don’t be surprised that interviewers of certain seniority do come with such traits which got applicants really confused. Will you think that you’d work for interviewers this way?

No idea what to expect after the first interview

Even before you attend the interview, understand how the recruitment process is. There are some companies that may end up with two or even three interview sessions. You have to get yourself prepared so you can expect that the process will take a longer time.

Some interviewers do not tell you what to expect and only end the interview with – “We will inform if you are shortlisted”. No one likes to wait for no reason or even indefinitely. If the interviewer does not breathe a word about the next cause of action, ask. You are obliged to know how the outcome of the interview is and you’ll know how to move forward from there.

All of the above are small things that you should take note during the interview. Else, you’ll probably end up accepting a job and later regret to it. Job acceptance process should be assessed all together and not just by the job scopes.

3 Tips to Achieve Healthier Work Relations

Daily interactions are key milestones to our everyday movements, but it can get tricky when trying to figure out a balance between work and personal relations. However, cultivating meaningful relationships does not necessarily mean that it will take excessive time and energy. Usually it boils down to sincerity and effort at the right moments. 

Trying to maintain good relations can be highly beneficial in the long run, as it can increase productivity and positivity in the company. While not everyone in the office will be friends with one another, here are some ways to achieve healthy work relations for a better working environment.

BE AS REAL AS POSSIBLE

It is understandable if you want to keep your work and personal lives separated, but in order to form deeper connections with your colleagues, try to be as real as possible. Revealing bits of yourself outside of the office will help them create an impression of you better than what they perceive from just the desk. A little self-disclosure is healthy in this case, because it will help to create better understandings that can aid working partnerships in the future.

OFFER TO HELP WITH THEIR PROBLEMS

When your colleagues face problems at work, always be proactive in offering to lend a helping hand. This encourages them to trust you and therefore return the favour when necessary. You also get to show a different side of yourself when you offer to do tasks outside of your work scope. It will also help them to see you as not just a co-worker, but also a friend. 

CONSIDERATION IS KEY

In the office, working as a well-oiled team is paramount for any company to flourish. So be considerate towards your colleagues, and remember that it is not just important that you’re happy, but consider their needs as well. For example, turning down the volume of your music or keeping your things neat are good ways to show that you have considered their presences as important as yours also.