6 reasons youre not getting hired and how to fix them

6 reasons youre bedrngnis getting hired and how to fix them6 reasons youre not getting hired and how to fix themFinding a job is not an easy task. Its especially frustrating when youve sent out resume after resume and havent landed the dream job youve been working so hard for. It may be time to reflect on the real reasons youre not getting hired and how you can fix them so you can finally land a job you love.1. Youre overqualified or underqualifiedRecruiters and hiring managers expect your experience, strengths, and skills to align with at least 1/2 - preferably 3/4 - of those listed in the job posting. So honestly ask yourself, are you applying for jobs that are above your area of expertise? Or are you beginning to feel desperate and just about ready to accept any offer, even one well below your pay grade?Solution It is your job as the candidate to show how your previous experiences line up with those outlined in the job posting. Use language found directly from each individual jo b posting, then relate it back to your own experiences and skills before applying. If your resume doesnt clearly show how youre a good fit, youre not going to get calls.2. Your resume needs some TLCWith recruiters only spending a handful of seconds on the first pass of a resume, your resume game needs to be on point and immediately catch their attention.Solution Start your resume with a brief summary that quickly highlights how youre the perfect fit for the company and position. Use the remainder of the page to focus on the value and results you have delivered over the course of your career. A majority of this should be done using accomplishments.3. Youre submitting your resume and not doing anything elseSubmitting your titel letter and resume is not enough. Every application you submit should be coupled with extensive company research and networking, as networking accounts for upwards of 85% of new jobs.Solution Each time you apply for a job, seek out five people at the company who hold similar positions to the one youre applying to. Send a friendly message and dont be afraid to reach out to them by setting up a networking call or coffee meeting to learn more about the company and the work they do. You have nothing to lose and might just get yourself a reference - or job.4. Youre networking passively or overly aggressiveSending your resume to a recruiter or hiring manager with the message, Attached is my resume. Please let me know if you have any positions available is passive networking.Proceeding to then connect with them on multiple forms of social media outside of LinkedIn is overly aggressive networking - and honestly just a bit creepy.Solution You need to play an active role in your job search. Networking takes time, energy and effort as you work to develop two-way relations. As a job seeker, you need to put in just as much work as the recruiter or hiring manager.Follow the companies you are interested in working at and reach out to employees to get a real glimpse into the companys morale. And dont be creepy5. Youre in need of some honest feedbackIf youve followed all of the above steps and still arent landing interviews, youre likely in need of some honest feedback.Solution Seek out a mentor or coach who can give you the advice you need to hear, not the advice you want to hear. While family and friends can serve as great support systems, they are not the objective lens you need. A mentor or coach can work with you to identify obstacles and remove roadblocks during your job search.6. Youre blaming it on bad luckWhile luck is involved in any job search, the role it plays is small. A vast majority of job search success comes down to hard work and effective job searching methods.Solution Focus on the aspects of the job search you do have control over - updating your resume and cover letter, leveraging LinkedIn and networking, seeking out mentorship and coaching, and preparing for your interviews.Kyle Elliott, MPA, CHES is the Care er Coach behind CaffeinatedKyle.com where he helps people find jobs they LOVE (or at least tolerate). He loves coffee (if you couldnt tell), writing, and eating the same thing at different restaurants.

How to be more execution-focused as a leader

How to be mora execution-focused as a leaderHow to be more execution-focused as a leaderA leaders job is to keep the kollektiv on track. You focus on hitting deadlines and executing projects without losing focus or getting lost in the weeds of decisions, communications and logistics. The ability to execute in this way is critical for every leader.In fact,Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkmanfound that senior managers ranked execution first on a list of 16 must-have leadership skills, as they explain in an article forHarvard Business Review.The good news is, you and your kollektiv can improve on execution and become more execution-focused without working extra hours, suggests Zenger and Folkman. Instead, use the following ideas to make small changes within your team and yourself, allowing everyone to do what they need to meet deadlines and stay on track.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreE mpower your team to make decisionsWhen you provide the training, resources, information and the necessary level of trust for employees to make decisions in their spheres of influence, you teach them how to be responsible and accountable for executing on their own.This allows your team to be more creative, industrious and solution-oriented because they dont need to wait for approval from you to execute when theyre ready. Cisco does this with actionable accountability, which empowers employees to act, while holding everyone accountable to specific, measurable criteria.Kevin Bandy, former senior vice president and chief digital officer of Cisco,explains, To enable actionable accountability, establish clear measurement criteria based on roles and responsibilities. Then enable people to act and challenge the metrics to align to a new business model allowing them to measure that progress.Bandy continues, By developing a core managerial and organizational competency of actionable accountab ility, you will unleash and direct the power of your most vital asset - empowered employees.When you think of meetings Think 20% or 22 minutesThere are many good reasons for meetings - to communicate as a team, check-in on projects, brainstorm on new initiatives and more. However, if more than 20% of office hours are spent in meetings, employees have less time to perform their actual jobs, explainsGeorge Deeb, managing partner at Red Rocket Ventures. When employees are tied up in meetings, they have less time to take action and execute, and its your job to make sure thats not the case.To avoid this execution roadblock, Deeb suggests scheduling a one-on-one meeting with each of my direct reports, one meeting with the person managing me and one meeting with my peers to collaborate on needs between departments - keeping those meetings within the 20% margin. To keep track of the time spent, put all meetings on your calendar. At the end of the month, you can tally the time you and you r team spent in meetings and adjust accordingly.If youre still struggling with this challenge, try the 22-Minute Meeting, an idea that came fromNicole Steinbokat Seattle Ignite 9. The idea is simple schedule meetings for just 22 minutes - not 30, not 60. The value being that when youre on a time-based deadline, youre more likely to be productive, leading to less time wasted, and more work done.To make this work,Steinbok recommendsthe following processSchedule the meetingSet a goal-based agendaSend materials 3 days ahead of the meetingStart on timeStandNo computers, except for the presenter and note-takerNo phones, no exceptionsFocus Note off-topic commentsSend notes and action items ASAPThis is a major shift for many, so it may be wise to start with just your team. If you find youre spending less time in meetings and more time executing on plans, bring it to the rest of the company as a simple and free growth initiative.Fine-tune your team communicationA critical element of executi on is communication. While this seems obvious, most companies are not prioritizing internal communication. In the2017 State of Workplace Communications report, two-thirds of respondents had not received a budget increase for communication-supporting technology in recent years. Whats more, nearly one-fifth said that the biggest hurdle was getting senior leadership to see internal communications as a priority.To bring execution to the forefront, you first have to do so with communication, starting with goal-setting and aligning on company priorities - two factors that directly affect your ability to execute successfully. If you cant get leadership on board with new communication technology or internal communication initiatives to make this possible, theres still a lot you can do, with little to no budget, to improve communication among your team.Use the free tools available to youOnline chat tools like GChat make it easy to stay connected with employees consistently. To be execution- focused, you need to be able to move fast, and having a tool for immediate communication at your fingertips allows you to do exactly that.Tell storiesTheCenter for Creative Leadershipsuggests using stories, when applicable, in your communication with employees. CCL notes When you tell a good story, you give life to a vision, goal, or objective. Telling good stories creates trust, captures hearts and minds, and serves as a reminder of the vision. This is a valuable tool for you to encourage employees to act and ensure the project, plan or goals stay top of mind.Encourage feedbackYou can only get better if you know whats working and whats not working for your team. Make feedback a two-way conversation, allowing employees to improve, along with yourself. Set one-on-one feedback meetings each month or each quarter to build this into your team culture.Be creative in your presentationCommunicate your strategy and needs in a variety of different ways. Emails, for instance, can get overlook ed, and someone may be out of the office on the day of your kick-off meeting.Clearpoint Strategyshares an example of how Canon got creative with this Canon USA created Strategy in Action Canon Americas Strategy Playbook. This playbook featured a color-coded version of the corporate strategy map and was designed by a graphic artist who had worked for USA Today. Find ways to incorporate creative ways to communicate.Be more execution-focused as a leaderThe bottom line is this Employees should regulate themselves to meet the demands of their positions. Teams should communicate regularly and consistently. Meetings should be productive, not wasteful. And you should orient everyone, not toward the abstract finish line, but first toward the concrete steps that are needed to arrive there. Use these ideas to take the first steps toward an execution-focused mindset, both for you and your employees.This article originally appeared on SmartBrief.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rit uals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people

How the Best Recruiters Communicate

How the Best Recruiters Communicate How the Best Recruiters Communicate As a recruiter, youre often a candidates first touchpoint with a company. Youre the first opportunity for an employer to make a good impression, yours is the first hand that a potential employee shakes, and youre the first ambassador of an employers brand.Because of all this, your ability to communicate well can be the difference between establishing a new relationship or losing sought-after talent. With that in mind, heres a roundup of tips based on recent research into how the best recruiters communicate.Ditch Phone Calls Start TextingThe most effective recruiters use modern communication methods such as text messaging and social media, and this has a huge effect on their companies bottom lines.At TextUs, we recently did an in-depth study of how staffing firms communicate with candidates to identify how their communication styles relate to their business growth. We polled 45 staffing firms including some of the biggest in the country and compared companies that anticipated nicht weit davon entfernt sein growth in the coming year (50 percent) to those that anticipated slow growth (5 percent).What we found welches astounding. We expected to find that faster-growth firms communicate differently from slow-growth firms. What we didnt expect was that the impact would be so huge.Heres a review of our findings1. More than75 percent of respondents believe text messaging is an effective form of communication for their company.All firms, on average, had similar perceptions about texting. Whether their companies were growing fast or slow, respondents said that SMS text messaging- improves speed of sales and sales productivity compared to email only- reduces candidate response time- and improves candidates experiences with their brand.But despite behauptung shared perceptions, fast-growth companies use texting much mora often.2. Fast-growth firms communicate through SMS texting and social media. S low-growth firms use phone and email.The fastest-growing agencies use SMS text nearly three times more than slow-growth ones. They also use social media almost five times more. As for phone and email fast-growth firms use these traditional forms of communication much less than slow-growth firms.3. Fast-growth firms use text messaging in a much more personalized way, and candidates like it a lot better.Fast- and slow-growth firms also use text messaging differently. Slow-growth firms tend to use text as they might use email they blast texts or send mass, impersonal messages.In contrast, fast-growth firms personalize their text messages. They use texts to sell jobs, confirm references, offer shifts and confirm shift changes, send reminders, and converse on other daily matters. As a result, candidates respond more positively to text messages from the fast-growth firms.Be a Social ButterflyIn our study, social media was another key differentiator between fast-growth and slow-growth staf fing firms.We arent the only ones to observe this. In a recent Jobvite study of recruiters and hiring managers, 44 percent of respondents said social recruiting increased both the quality and quantity of candidates. Thirty-four percent said it improved the time-to-hire as well.But beware. Not all social media platforms are equal. Top recruiters focus on using each platform for what it does best. In the Jobvite survey, 95 percent of respondents said they use LinkedIn to search for and contact candidates. However, they rely on Facebook and Twitter to showcase their employer brands.Think Like a MarketerStrong recruiters think like marketers. This approach is effective because candidates judge best-fit by researching a companysemployer brand.CareerBuilder found that 91 percent of candidates say a potential employers brand plays a big part in whether or not they apply to a job. Whats more, 68 percent will accept a lower salary if they have a positive impression of an organizations employ er brand. This goes to show that, sometimes, the potential for a good relationship is even more important than the bottom line.Be Quick and ResponsiveAs withany relationship, the connection between recruiter and job seeker requires consistent, reliable communication.Bullhorn recently asked more than1,300 recruiting industry professionals what makes a successful recruiter. The top five traits were all related to communication (in fact, one was communication)PersistenceAbility to listenTenacityAbility to follow-upCommunicationSpeed of follow-up is also crucial 49 percent of companies hire recruiting firms out of the need to fill positions quickly.As a whole, these results show the importance of effective, relationship-focused communication in the recruiter-candidate relationship. Theresultsprovide valuable guidance about which strategies will help you attract todays top talent. So get out there and start communicating like the best of them