Managing
Nine Ways to Research Prospective Employers
Do this advance work and you’ll be set for a smarter interview—and have the knowledge to make a smarter career decision
It’s a great to spot a job opportunity that sounds like a match for your talents. Unfortunately, the typical job ad doesn’t tell you much more than the company’s name. You need to know: What sort of place is it? Is the organization profitable? Does the company hire smart people and give them room to grow? Is the CEO a tremendous leader or a dysfunctional tyrant?
Following are nine ways to learn about your next prospective employer both before and after you enter its recruitment and selection pipeline. The research will require an investment in time and clever stealth tactics Continue Reading
Looking for a New Career? Try Physical Therapy
With an aging U.S. population and two overseas wars, demand for physical therapists is soaring.
Unemployed Americans who are scientifically and sympathetically inclined may want to think about getting, well, physical. In a new SimplyHired.com study that names the occupations in greatest demand in the U.S., physical therapist ranked in the Top 3 in 29 out of the 40 metro areas included in the research conducted by the Mountain View (Calif.) job-search Web site, and physical therapist assistant made the Top 3 in 9 metro areas. Demand for physical therapists is expected to grow 27% between 2006 and 2016, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“It’s a profession recognized as having opportunity,” says Julie Keysor, associate Continue Reading
Skip Job Boards and Use Social Media Instead
If you rely on job boards or corporate Web sites for your job search, you’ll find yourself unemployed for a very long time. Instead, look to your networks, both in real life and in the virtual world. A recent Jobvite survey reflects this evolution in recruitment, noting that 72% of companies plan to invest more in recruiting through social networks. By using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as your own blog, you have more outlets to communicate your personal brand and find a job faster than the competition. Here’s a look at how you can best use these tools.
LinkedIn: The most obvious social network for corporate recruiting is LinkedIn, with more than 40 million professional member profiles across all industries. There are literally thousands of recruiters Continue Reading
Social Media and New Roles For Employees
Smart employees understand the power of social media in creating real business value and relationships with customers, the press, analysts, and all other stakeholders. But many employees haven’t realized that they’ve also been marketing their personal brand at the same time they’ve been pushing their company’s. By participating in social networks, employees have already cultivated a network that can help serve them today, six months from now, and throughout the rest of their lives.
Building personal brands and strong networks is critical right now. The economy has made the job market so cutthroat that there are 5.4 candidates for every open job, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you aren’t meeting and exceeding corporate Continue Reading
What Sets Today’s Winning Companies Apart
Business as usual just doesn’t work when cracks have opened in the foundations of the economy. To help figure out how winners are succeeding and seizing opportunities in this challenging time, IBM recently undertook a study to determine what distinguishes outperforming companies right now. We identified 61 companies in diverse sectors as early winners, based [...]
Playbook: Six Ways to Help Your Laid-off Employees
Small employers strapped for cash can still help workers they’re cutting
When small businesses decide to lay off workers, they often can’t afford generous severance packages or access to professional outplacement services. But employers strapped for cash can still help their departing workers. Take a look at our accompanying story, then see below for six [...]
Are You Full of Mojo or Nojo?
What is your attitude toward what you do? Is it positive one or negative? What do you radiate to people?
I am currently working on a new book, called MOJO. Unlike my book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, which focused on classic behaviors that successful people get wrong, MOJO will focus on [...]
A Twitter Code of Conduct
To prevent information leaks and other liabilities, companies are drafting guidelines for social media interaction. A rule of thumb: Don’t be stupid
During a recent tour of interactive ad agency Tocquigny’s Austin (Tex.) headquarters, Chief Executive Yvonne Tocquigny was confronted by her guest, an executive from a large energy company who was a potential client. The visitor had recently learned that Tocquigny was wooing one of his company’s competitors—by seeing a message that one of Tocquigny’s employees had posted to Twitter “It took me by surprise,” says Tocquigny. “I realized that we needed to be more cautious about what we throw out there in to the universe.”
Twitter can be a great business tool. But Continue Reading
How to manage 10 sticky situations at work
Employee romances, hammered help, religious zealots and more
As an entrepreneur, you’ll run into sticky situations at work, whether it’s grumbling employees or distractions, that get in the way of productivity.
Dealing with weirdness in the office is never easy, but it’s essential to running a successful company. “Human resources problems that get ignored have a really nasty habit of not going away,” says Margaret Hart Edwards, a shareholder at employment law firm Littler Continue Reading
Four Keys to Warding Off Challengers
All companies, regardless of resources or size, can employ straightforward strategies to keep their competitors from overtaking them
Competition is a fact of life in business. But that doesn’t mean you have to make it easy for other companies to take what’s yours. In fact, you should make it as difficult as possible for them [...]
Turn Your Company into a Shortcut
A “shortcut” is an employee or organization that’s indispensable. Here are strategies for using your best people to the utmost advantage
I recently spoke to a client who is a senior vice-president for sales at one of the world’s largest computer companies. She is in the midst of major layoffs, and she told me quite [...]
How to Handle a Bad Boss
We’ve all worked for tyrants and hypocrites. But before you blow up or break down, consider the alternatives
It happened again. Maybe the boss broke his or her word, bad-mouthed you, or torpedoed your promotion. You’re not surprised. Your boss already ignores your ideas, talks down to you, and expects you to be a mind-reader. And [...]
Small Retailers Push for Online Sales
BlackBerry vs. iPhone: RIM Takes It Up a Notch
