How to Write a Truly Convincing Job Ad

How to Write a Truly Convincing Job Ad Something that not enough recruiters realise is the power of branding and marketing. As Ive written before, you can be a great company that offers the best jobs in the world but if your job adverts dont reflect that then you wont get the best candidates. While people will probably send in applications based on almost any advert, they wont necessarily be the best people you could potentially get â€" because the top candidates are applying for jobs that seem to be much better prospects. Crafting a great job ad is not just a matter of listing a few dull duties or recycling the ad you used five years ago. Its a chance to showcase your employer brand and demonstrate the real, tangible reasons why the cream of the crop should find a place in your organisation. How can you turn your organisational needs into an exciting, enticing recruitment advert? Luckily its easier than you might think, at least once you know how. Be precise Too many job adverts suffer from vagueness and dont give a clear idea of what kind of person is needed. This is sometimes deliberate, as employers like to keep their options open and wait until they meet the successful candidate before they decide what exactly the job involves. Its fine to be flexible, and to want to tweak the role later to take into account your new employees skills. But if the ad gets watered down to the point where its not clear what the role is any more, then you need to make some more concrete decisions about exactly what needs the new employee will fill. Remember its not for everyone One of the best job postings ever (gender discrimination aside) was this one, in which explorer Ernest Shackleton recruited men to go with him to the South Pole: To be honest, it doesnt sound like my kind of thing Id prefer a job with a pool table and beer on Fridays. But thats fine. I probably wouldnt have managed very well on the expedition itself. A seasoned adventurer though would want nothing more than to be a part of this trip. Its a recruiters duty to let readers know clearly why they might not be suitable, by outlining necessary experience and qualifications. That way, unqualified people dont have to spend their time applying for a job they wont get. It sounds simple, but many employers shy away from stating hard requirements for fear of making the work sound unappealing. But at the risk of repeating ourselves, the best candidates will be suspicious of a job that will appear to accept just anyone. Include only what you need Just as an ad should be enticing without being vague, it should also be descriptive without rambling. After all, a posting is not meant to be a full job description nor should it aim to list absolutely everything the role involves. Instead its main purpose is to attract those who are likely to be qualified and interested in the role, and turn away those who are not â€" anything else can almost certainly be cut. Heres what you can safely leave out: The first six paragraphs comprising very detailed company history Too much about perks â€" perks are great but not the first thing candidates need to know Promises you cant keep â€" for example, raises after six months! Overuse of jargon or acronyms Writing a great ad for a job opening doesnt have to be difficult, stressful or time-consuming, as long as you keep in mind throughout what a prospective candidate is likely to want to see. Put yourself in their shoes and youve no reason not to get it right every time! Author: Liam Coleman is Co-Founder and Joint Managing Director with online recruitment agency BlueOctopusRecruitment in Leeds, UK.

The Art of the Pivot in Executive Search

The Art of the Pivot in Executive Search A key piece in identifying the right executive candidate happens before the search begins, during the engagement launch. We identify the desired education, skills, experience and cultural fit of targeted candidates and use that to bring the client an ideal set of candidates from which to choose. The art of the pivot in executive search is the process of taking that initial engagement data and creating alternative theses based on the ways the search may morph or modify. This might be caused by what the client is telling you today and what the market realities dictate in addition to how the client’s rethinking changes in the future. By intuiting these challenges and creating alternative theses, you reduce: The time it takes to find an ideal candidateFrustration related to lack of well-fitting candidatesDeficient outcomes from going to market incorrectly At Comhar Partners, we believe strongly in this strategy and think every executive search firm or in-house executive recruiter can use it to create a more memorable and successful engagement. Let’s take a look at how it works and how it can be applied practically with your client’s hiring needs. The A Ring and Beyond During “A Ring” development, we’re collecting a prime ring of data that relates to a specific thesis we have for launching the client engagement. Inevitably there are geographic limiters, must-have and nice-to-have skills, competency, culture, elements of the job and more. This includes: Evaluating the size, scope, and scale of the company.Relevant shifting of the role we are going to be sourcing based upon size. For example, when sourcing candidates for a billion-dollar, we may be looking for a manager or director of a 100M business, either regional or national. This is the scope-scale element.Educational level. What does the client require? Does the candidate need an advanced degree? We often look at past or current employees to evaluate where we see common threads in the kind of person they have historically recruited and build that into the profile.Experience in leadership, strategy, international versus domestic business, and cultural sensitivity to international corporate locations in another country, for example.Experience with very specific direct competitors versus someone with less industry knowledge who knows the type of function versus business itself. With all of this initial data, we’re able to develop our “A Ring”. This is what the client asked for, but it may not be what they need or want. To strategically pivot before the client does, you need to then make alternative theses based on this data, your knowledge of the market, and the ways in which you know clients commonly want to modify the search. The Pivot Search Strategy The goal of our extensive intake and strategic researching process is to develop very tight parameters that allow us to create a set of data that matches the ideal profile of what the client is looking for. It’s been our experience that the clients must-haves and nice-to-haves evolve based on the lifecycle of the search, so our ability to anticipate where we think the search may evolve or modify is critical. In pivoting, we modify the research data parameters and as a result, get another pocket of people that fit into the A1 Ring. Then we pivot another way in our thesis to develop an A2 Ring, so on and so forth. The launch of our research thesis then incorporates alternatives that might look like: A1 Ring: A broader level of hires because we are staying focused on specific firms or competitors.A2 Ring: A broader set of industries because we are focused on a specific geographic requirement.A3 Ring: A broader set of geography because we have to stay within a tight industry or level of leadership. Let’s consider a company in the perishable cheese business that’s on a growth path. Theyre looking for a VP of Marketing but the candidate doesn’t have to come from the cheese industry. They can have experience in any fast-moving consumer goods that would appear on the grocery store shelves, as long as they have prior branding and marketing experience. In this case study, the location is the challengeâ€"it’s remote and thus the candidate must relocate to this less business-centered city. What defines this search is the potential candidates’ interest and willingness to live in a more remote location that perhaps allows for a greater “quality of life.” As we look at the alternative rings, we see that: A1 Ring may look at more junior candidates; maybe a director, not a VP, from a larger revenue firm.A2 Ring may look at a broader set of industries, not even in fast-moving consumer goods because the right candidates can still have branding and marketing experience.A3 Ring may look for someone that’s even more of an outlier but wants to be in that geography; related to a “coming home” strategy, e.g. went to college nearby or grew up in the area. By pivoting ahead of time, we lead the search with a broader set of data and a more transparent client experience. They understand the areas in which a pivot could be beneficial and we are anticipating potential marketing and client changes ahead of time. This style of executive recruiting research is all about knowing what the client needs and using data and experience to anticipate what that secondary data looks like. In mastering the art of the pivot in executive search, you provide your client with a better experience and create a more impressive engagement, all of which drives value now and in the future. About the author: Managing Director Bernard Layton and the team at Comhar Partners are recognized national leaders in retained executive search, professional recruiting, and talent advisory services. Comhar, derived from the Gaelic word meaning collaboration,” was formed with the intention of providing recruiting expertise in deep partnership with the client in order to solve talent management challenges. Comhar Partners is headquartered in Chicago with specialized recruiting consultants based in 7 offices across the United States

Skills Of A Successful Leader

Skills Of A Successful Leader Leadership is a subjective art of getting your work done by other people that you want to get done in a given period of time. When we hear the word leadership a number of images related to this word come to our mind. These images can be of a political leader, strategist or an explorer.Not every person has this art. Moreover, not everyone can practice this art. It is best handled by people who have it ingrained in them. It can never be tamed or learned. It comes naturally and that is the only reason not everyone can be a leader.evalFor a person to become a successful leader the very first thing that is required is he/she should have the quality of being a leader deep inside him/ her.Rightly said by Donald H. McGannon, “Leadership is an action, not a position.” Yes!! It is actually true. There exists no position like leadership in any corner of the world. It is a series of actions taken by an individual that makes him/ her leader. The actions that turn an individual into a leader a re not so common. Those actions are bold and different for any other person to take because of fear of standing alone.A leader does not fear standing alone. In fact he/she has the ability to make people agree to his/ her point of view. A leader is the one who do right things for every person in the society.We are going to discuss the skills that are needed to take right decision and do right things. These skills are:1. Having the ability to depict inspiring visionA vision is an attractive and convincing description of where one wants to be in the coming time. It shows the actual destination where one wants to see himself, herself or the group. Thus, a leader should possess the ability to depict the vision to the group members or the followers in such a way that they also feel the urge in them to reach to that point.2. Power to motivate and inspire peopleA leader should exercise the power to motivate and inspire people around him/ her. He/ she should have that ability to fire an urge among the people even when they have do not feel the fire in them. During such stage, a leader should be able to make people take a move and march towards the destination.3. The art of managementLeadership comes to those who have the art of management in them. It is through effective management of steps required to be taken to reach to the destination. A leader should be able to manage everything in between perfectly. If there exist any problem, he/ she should be able to manage things in an order to overcome the problems during a period of time.4. Building a teamevalA leader must have the ability to build a great team and strengthening it from time to time. He/ she should work towards always keeping the team motivated and coordinated. He/ she should also ensure that each member of the team has all the required skill sets and abilities needed to accomplish the task.5. Pursuing the bettermentA good and successful leader should always pursue towards the betterment of everything around . He/ she should never focus on his own needs. Instead, he/ she work for the good of every other person.6. Positive influenceIt is very important that a leader should have open and positive influence. The followers or team members should get influenced by the leader positively. It will be only then that the followers or team members will be doing everything a leader asks them to do.7. Confident and clearA leader should be confident and clear. Confidence in a leader makes the followers/ team members to rely upon his/ her decisions. The quality of clarity in a leader makes the mission and vision clear to everybody. Thus, it is very important for a leader to have clear thoughts and carry confidence.8. Solution to all problemsevalPeople should see the leader as a solution to all the problems. He/ she should always see the problems as challenge and should be readily available to provide a solution to all the problems. Whenever the followers are in a state of dilemma or face any problem, the leader should always be willing to draw him/ her towards the problem.9. PatienceA leader should always have much required patience. He/ she should be patient to listen to others, understand their point of view and provide a solution. Patience is the key to people’s heart for a leader. Thus, he/ she should always show enough patience while dealing with people.10. Helpful to othersA leader should always strive towards helping others with their problems. He/ she should be always available to people whenever they are in any kind of a problem. A good and successful leader is the one who helps people whenever they are in need.These were the key skills that are required in a leader. Though every leader has his or her own style and strategy of handling people and things but these are the skills that are required by every person who acts as a leader. Thus, leaders should always perform in an effective and efficient manner.Productive leaders always show positive energy and are optimisti c. They know how to handle their team and are well versed with all the techniques to keep their team motivated and together.Moreover, true leaders strive at creating many other leaders. They always boost people towards achieving great things. They make people do things which they believed they cannot do. It is only the power vested in the hands of a leader that unites people to achieve a common goal without any feeling of jealous and negativity. Thus, in order to be a good leader you just need to have these skills at first and work for the benefit of all.

More great blogs about happiness at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

More great blogs about happiness at work - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog The more I look the more blogs I find that talk about happiness at work. It seems like theres a regular groundswell of interest in getting love your job or getting a job you love. Here are some more of my favorites, that I follow closely and heres my previous crop of Happy At Work blogs. The Engaging Brand Anna Farmerys blog should be about branding, I guess, but she keeps writing great posts on improving work life and business culture. Check out 10 ways to bring fun to meetings and How to screw up successfully. She also does podcasts the last one was with Dan Pink and she interviewed me for one this week which will be out next week we had a blast talking and I think the result will be well worth listening to. The Performance Talent Management Blog Max Goldman writes this excellent blog for consulting company SuccessFactors. He has a fresh, interesting perspective on all things HR. Hello My Name Is Scott Scott Ginsberg once forgot to take off his name tag after an event, found that it created an immediate connection with people and has worn one ever since. What a cool, friendly happy idea. Btw: He thinks you should set fire to your TV. I agree! Zinger on leadership and humor Having Kjerulf for a last name, as I do, has its upsides: Its distinctive (Im the only Alexander Kjerulf in the world, for instance) and it gives me access to a very exclusive club. The downside is that only danes can pronounce it. No matter where in the world I go, Im universally greeted with Hello Mr. Keh Mr. K Mr How the heck do you pronounce that abomination of a last name, anyway? But while being a Kjerulf may be cool, it could never beat being a Zinger. Go read David Zingers two excellent blogs on leadership and humor. The Slacker Manager Brendon Connelly is a Fortune 500 refugee, now happily entrenched as a university administrator in the Pacifc Northwest of the United States. Check out his management hacks. Bailey WorkPlay Chris Bailey writes about work+life+all the wonder in between including spirituality at work and good leadership. Hidden Mojo A blog about releasing the hidden mojo in an organization and its people. Its brand new, so go encourage Kareem Mayan who writes it. Kareems personal blog is also a great read. Gruntled Employees Well you dont want them to be disgruntled, do you? Employer advocate and counsel Jay Shepherd blogs on how to re-gruntle you people. http://www.gruntledemployees.com/ Think Positive! Blog Not specifically work related, but lots of positive thoughts. And you thought my blog was annoyingly positive. 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

Why Use a Resume Writing Service?

Why Use a Resume Writing Service?If you have a passion for travel, and your dream is to travel to faraway countries by the hour, CPPC a resume writing service could be for you. You can have your resume ready to submit to various travel companies before you leave on your trip. Not only will it impress your future employer, but it will help you land the most desired jobs at your destination.Your resume will help you convince these travel companies of your skills, if you provide a clear and concise example of your experiences. This is where an experienced and reputable CV writing service can help you. They will do all the needed research so that they can give you the best information about the many options available to you.A CPPC a resume writing service will be the first step in your career advancement. First of all, they will gather the required information and then, they will prepare a well-written document for you. Once you have your CV ready, you can immediately submit it to severa l travel companies who need to be able to accurately evaluate you. It is important to understand that hiring people who are young, single, energetic, and enthusiastic, will be the best option for your dream trip.Once you have found the best company that will send you your first job, you can find out that it is more cost effective to hire a qualified and experienced CPPC a resume writing service. With the right kind of service, you will not only get your dream job, but also get the exposure to the entire world.CPPC a resume writing service has some advantages over other companies. They will give you tailored documents at a fraction of the price of other companies. It is easy to get these documents from their website as they make use of updated and latest technology.Remember that you need to be specific in describing your qualities, so that you are assured of getting a resume that will allow you to impress any company. They will ask you to go through your application package, so that they can provide you with a sample resume that is tailored for your needs.An expert can make a good resume and most importantly, a good employee. An experienced CPPC a resume writing service will never charge you more than what it will pay you to hire them. This is why it is wise to invest in the services of a reputable company.