The Top 5 Ways to Boost Your Career Potential in Today’s Job Market

The Top 5 Ways to Boost Your Career Potential in Today’s Job Market

In today’s job market, it’s more important than ever to ensure you’re doing everything possible to boost your career potential. With so many qualified candidates competing for limited positions, setting yourself apart from the rest is essential. Fortunately, there are several things you can do to improve your chances of landing the job you want. […]

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How Video Making Became An Essential Part Of Job Application

How Video Making Became An Essential Part Of Job Application

When looking for a job, there is no doubting the importance of a quality job application. It helps get your foot in the door and can be instrumental in helping you land an interview. Your job application is all about highlighting yourself and why you would be a good fit for the position. While job […]

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Why You Should Embrace Networking (Especially If You Hate It)

Why You Should Embrace Networking (Especially If You Hate It)

After a long day at work, sometimes all you want to do is sit on the couch, eat a bag of chips, and zone out watching television. The thought of attending a networking event seems so daunting. Not only do you have to give up free time, but you also may have to talk with strangers.

With this type of mindset, it’s easy to see why so many people are apprehensive about the concept of networking. However, when you avoid networking, you miss out on so many great opportunities.

While networking can feel uncomfortable at first, it’s actually a huge investment in yourself. Many people avoid networking simply because they’re not used it, but like anything, practice makes perfect.

Here are the top reasons why you should embrace networking:

Take Networking As A Challenge

Building networking skills not only builds confidence but it also plays an important role in professional development, career planning, and potential job searches down the line.

The best way to build these skills is to embrace networking as a challenge. Like going to the gym to reach a fitness goal or taking online courses to further a career, you take on this challenge in order to achieve a long-term goal.

Flex Your Networking Muscle

Young woman networks with colleagues at work

When you’re working out at the gym you don’t see instant results. You have to put the work in. Networking is the same way. The results won’t be instant but every step you take puts you in a better position.

Make networking a habit. Try to attend some sort of social function each week to keep those networking “muscles” flexin’.

Make Networking Part Of Your Routine

Man networking on LinkedIn

A simple change of attitude could go a long ways in changing your outlook about networking. The hardest part is getting started!

Put Yourself Out There

Man at a networking event

Start by putting yourself out there and attending local networking events reach out to a well-connected colleague to help introduce you to other professionals both in and outside your field.

The more this is done, the easier it becomes. Soon, you’ll see your network slowly grow. Having a large professional network can lead to new friendships and mentorships.

Most importantly, this network could eventually turn into future job references, LinkedIn endorsements, and job opportunities.

You never know when you’ll be looking for a new job. So, get off the couch, meet some new people, and see where your network takes you.

Rethink Your Networking Strategy

Woman networking on LinkedIn

Don’t be a selfish networker. While networking can work to your advantage, remember that it’s important to help others, too. This is especially true when connecting with someone on LinkedIn. Don’t ask for favors right away. Show your value as a connection first.

How’s Your Networking Etiquette?

Man networks with people at work

Take inventory of your networking habits. There may be simple ways to improve.

No matter where you are in your career, you shouldn’t pass up networking opportunities. We hope these tips help you embrace networking, instead of fearing or dreading it.

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.

Common Career Mistakes for Fleet Managers

Common Career Mistakes for Fleet Managers

Fleet managers have a chance to work in an industry that tends to be rewarding and interesting and working in this position can lead to even greater responsibilities. The necessary skills include technical knowledge and communication. However, there are a few common mistakes many fleet managers make. Understanding these common errors can help you be […]

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Using Quality Management To Improve KPIs

Using Quality Management To Improve KPIs

“Do more with less.”

This seems to be top management’s mantra these days. Contact centers’ performance is intensively measured, often down to the second, with KPI data such as average handling time (AHT) or first contact resolution (FCR).

With so much data available, the pressure is on to shave seconds off of call lengths and solve more problems the first time around.

You can use your quality team, their expertise, and their technology, to do this. The tried and tested Lean Six Sigma process improvement methodology can be applied to such problems. It can be summarized with the handy acronym “DMAIC.”

Here’s how we would use this approach to make systemic reductions in AHT.

D for Define

key performance indicator (KPI) concept

In this stage, you define the aim and the scope of your project. For our example, the aim is to reduce AHT, so reducing the cost per call and the number of agents to handle a specific call volume.

The scope of the project might be for one team as a pilot project before rolling it out across the contact center.

This is also the stage where you recruit your project team. You will want a couple of agents, someone who can get hold of and analyze data, and a senior sponsor who should take a “hands off” role but win you the co-operation of team leaders, etc.

In our example, our aim is to reduce AHT by 10%. We are using a small team of 10 agents for the pilot, and the project team consists of two experienced agents, a data analyst, and the facilitator.

M for Measure

time, quality, cost concept

Our critical to quality KPI is AHT. We want to reduce this by 10%. Now we need to figure out what might be the root causes that are making the calls so long.

We ask our agents to map out the call flow and after-call work process as they experience it. It’s tempting for the facilitator to use a flow diagram from IT. Agents often use multiple applications which don’t fit easily into a flow diagram. Agents often develop “workarounds” when things don’t work. They start as temporary measures, but then balloon into permanent institutions.

It’s best to have these discussions with agents without management being present. Agents may not be willing to express themselves so freely in the presence of someone who can fire them.

Start by creating a simple process description with a “SIPOC” diagram. If need be, you can flesh it out with more detail.

Once you have defined the process, then you need to brainstorm all the possible reasons why the calls might be long. For details on how to brainstorm, please see “further reading” below.

Now you have your top 10 suspected root causes. You will decide how to measure them.

You will probably use them as evaluation criteria on a call listening form. For more details on creating such a form, please see “further reading” below. If you have speech analytics technology, you may be able to automate some or all of these measurement activities, which will give you a much larger sample size.

Calls are either longer than or shorter than AHT, so we want to select two sample groups, one longer and one shorter

We listen to the calls and count the presence of the suspected root causes in them.

A for Analyze

Woman looks over data for KPIs

Once you have listened to your sample, count how many times evidence of each root cause is found in the sample of “long” calls and how many times evidence of each root cause is found in the sample of “short” calls.

Where the evidence mostly appears in the longer calls, these are likely to be the real root causes. Where the evidence appears equally in both samples or mostly in the shorter calls, then these will not be the root causes of the calls being longer.

You have now identified your root causes based on data.

I for Improve

quality management concept

If the verified root cause is the result of agent behavior, then you can correct it with appropriate training.

If the verified root cause is the result of some system issue—for example, agents are using an application that loads slowly—then you may need to look into improving the application’s performance.

If there are specific steps in the process that are slowing the agents down, then you may need to adjust the process.

There should be some scope for improvements.

C for Control

Older professional gives a presentation

After taking corrective action, you will want to see if you have reduced AHT by 10%.

It’s not hard to get those results.

You will now want to see if the change in AHT was the result of the root causes you identified.

Run the same measurement program for calls longer or shorter than AHT again. If the longer calls contain evidence of the same root causes in the same proportions as they did before, then your efforts may have been for nothing, and you did not find the root causes.

Wrap-Up

Do you need to get a grip on your KPIs and “Do more with less”? Perhaps this might help. If you’d like to know more, I’d love to hear about it!

Further reading…

Here is my article on brainstorming: How To Run A Brainstorming Session

Here is my article on quality standards: Creating Quality Standards For Contact Centers


Executive Spotlight: How Different Industries Are Reacting To A Shifting Economy

Executive Spotlight: How Different Industries Are Reacting To A Shifting Economy

For the first two quarters of 2022, we have seen the market contract. This is considered a sign of a recession. To shine some light on what this means for you, we asked our leading executives how their industry reacts to a shifting economy.

Here are their responses…

Jim Black, Engineering & Technical Executive

Engineers work together on a project

For my industry, we are playing things very simply. The aerospace market is rebounding, and our business follows this trend. We are continuing with a growth mindset; however, we are more prudent with capital outlay. As more orders are released, we will make more investments. We are simply being more mindful of what and how we spend until the economy shows an improvement.

Jim Black is an engineering professional focused on the development of technical professionals. He is also a professional bass player.

Carla Biasi, Personal Stylist

Personal stylist helps a client pick out clothes to wear

The fashion industry is focused on sustainability. It’s not only good for the environment but helps during tough market conditions. For example, White House Black Market is having a denim recycling event this month. They are rewarding customers for donating jeans they don’t wear and receiving credit dollars on their accounts. Other brands are offering similar incentives. This helps fewer clothes end up in landfills and gives shoppers the opportunity to spread their shopping dollars further.

Consignment shops have become quite popular. Clothes, shoes, bags, and jewelry can be sold to stores, and the seller walks away with cash in hand. Jewelry stores have vendors that will buy silver and gold so clean out your jewelry box.

It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Prepare for a recession by cleaning out your closet.

Carla Biasi is a personal stylist living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She currently has her own business and works part-time at an upscale women’s boutique and as a virtual and kit stylist for a women’s specialty brand.

Melodie Turk, Learning Experience Executive

never stop learning concept

Learning and development isn’t a necessity (or so they say), so when profits are down, this expense generally gets cut. The learning and development industry usually doubles down on the retention investment argument, which is important but lacks the change in focus to win the battle. Good leaders already know that learning and development can really be an asset, but during lean times the argument loses priority.

What we really need to do is become a partner in adding to the bottom line. If you need to cut staff, the learning team should partner with employees to increase resilience. If you need employees to take on extra responsibilities, the learning team should partner with employees to help them manage their time really well. If you need leaders to take on unique challenges, the learning team should partner with each leader to strengthen the skills they need for that challenge.

In lean times, we sometimes forget the capabilities of learning and development and only remember the regular training and cadence that has been in place. Learning teams can continue that regular cadence staff are used to, which creates stability in a changing environment; while offering new content, specifically designed for the issues at hand.

Melodie Turk is a learning experience executive with a unique background in the learning and development arena as well as change management. She is passionate about bringing change to the workplace—change that is meaningful and change that will last.

Lynn Holland, Business Development Executive

Business professional talk during a work meeting

I recently joined a Boutique BPO (business process outsource) provider that caters to small to mid-sized organizations to affordably supplement back-office processes and upscale frontline service, support, and sales.

Here are three ways they give agility and insulate operations in volatile times:

1. Enabling seamless restructuring for staffing

Seamlessly transitioning essential W-2 front line to mid-management staff to 1099s in their respective roles, achieving needed P&L adjustments and business continuity.

2. Delivering the workforce agility of a race car

Swiftly standing up and activating technology, flex staffing, and workforce management for virtual or hybrid operations on demand, seasonally, or ongoing.

3. Facilitating re-envisioned and re-tooled or optimized operations

Delivering efficiency and service excellence in one of two ways:

  • Pairing an existing process flow, training curriculum, and tech stack with consultative experts, skilled staff, deep analytics, and best practices.
  • Deploying an expert team to customize and execute the customer journey, onboarding and training process, and tech stack.

Lynn Holland is a business development executive with 18+ years of experience taking operational, IoT & retail technologies, products, & consumer engagement to market with a focus in petroleum & convenience retail.

Lisa Perry, Global Marketing Executive

Global marketing concept

Recessions are never fun, but it forces marketers to think outside the box, looking at innovative solutions and cost-effective strategies while juggling resources. Here are three strategies to consider during a recession.

1. Don’t Cut Spending

Many companies will cut their marketing spending during a recession. Fight the urge to cut your spending. In fact, look to increase your spending. Companies that advertise during a recession saw 256% higher sales. Doing so will help you stand out from the competition.

2. Focus On Analysis & Reporting

With the pressure of longer sales cycles and budget constraints, tracking, analysis, and reporting become even more critical during a recession in order to ensure you prove your marketing ROI.

3. Protect Existing Customers

The cost of retaining customers is much lower than the cost to acquire new ones. During a recession, focus your efforts on your biggest asset, your current, loyal customers.

Lisa Perry helps companies build leadership brands, driving loyal customers & delivering profitability. She does this through a process that builds brands consumers love. Her goal is to help companies develop, monetize, and grow their brands.

Dr. Hannah Hartwell, Learning & Development Executive

now hiring concept

I’ve seen considerable changes to the learning and development industry during Q1 and Q2 of 2022, especially around hiring and strategy. Companies are restricting hiring on certain levels. They’re also being more purposeful when making hiring decisions to find the right mutual fit. Another trend is to hire for the role, rather than hiring for future roles.

I’ve noticed changes in the strategy and overall company goals. Companies are concerned about the fiscal and political climate. There tends to be a focus on shorter-term projects, rather than to prepare for future projects that don’t have an exact start date.

Dr. Hannah Hartwell is a learning and development executive and change management practitioner with 15+ years of business transformation experience in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, higher education, and professional services industries.

Sarita Kincaid, Tech Media Executive

public relations, communication, internet, social media concept

Historically, market contractions have served as a bell weather for potential layoffs in the high-tech corporate communications field (analyst relations [AR] and public relations [PR] fields). Until recently, the old adage about PR and AR jobs during a downturn was that these roles were almost always “first to be fired, last to be hired (back).”

However, that’s becoming less and less true as corporate communications professionals are finally being recognized as essential and strategic to the business, something that the professional has worked very hard to establish.

I’ll use the AR function as an example: for too long, AR work has inaccurately been seen as very tactical—teams of people that set up briefings, wordsmith research notes, and act as glorified relationship managers. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but education (in any market) can take time. Great strides have been made over the past two to three years as many companies now see AR not as a cost center but one that can help drive sales by educating and leveraging their network of tech purchase recommenders (aka the analysts!)

Sarita Kincaid is a tech media executive with a demonstrated ability to build and grow award-winning programs. She brings a data-driven approach to influencer relations with a focus on developing strong brand advocates and aligning them with sales programs.

How is your industry reacting to a shifting economy? Join the conversation inside Work It Daily’s Executive Program.

What Is BPO And 5 Top Ways A “Boutique BPO” Insulates Leaders Amidst Uncertainty

What Is BPO And 5 Top Ways A “Boutique BPO” Insulates Leaders Amidst Uncertainty

Most companies use a form of “business process outsourcing” (BPO) or “outsourcing,” tapping someone else to perform operational, logistical, service, support, or sales-related functions as a primary or supplementary resource vs. depending solely on in-house infrastructure. Nearly every individual with a pulse is also well acquainted with outsourcing aspects of their personal life.

This could be the CPA, attorney, marketing agency, or consultant that you retain, an answering service, mechanic, your dentist, dry cleaner, or nanny. The list goes on.

So why “Niche or Boutique BPO”? You might think of it as the “Goldilocks” fit for small to mid-market organizations, new ventures, and secondary or emerging corporate divisions.

The following are (5) ways “Niche or Boutique BPO” scales perfectly, delivers exceptional service, and uniquely insulates and equips mid-market executives to pivot amidst uncertainty.

1. You instantly become a big deal. Specializing in serving small of mid-sized organizations, expect a luxury service experience WITHOUT PAYING MORE.

throne

Have you ever anticipated a luxury purchase? If so, you appreciate the sensory EXPERIENCE of stepping into an exclusive store to interact with an exceptionally made product, refined staff, and brand that places immense importance on your mere presence, affinity for their brand, and investment. Every detail anticipated and carefully addressed in a polished fashion to help you acquire an enduring product, perfectly tailored to your preferences, delivered with an exceptional customer experience, followed by unwavering and responsive AFTERCARE, continuing the exceptionalism after your purchase.

As you consider appointing added resources to supplement operations or upscale your customer journey, expect a luxury experience with amenities such as:

  • Direct access to the C-suite and executive leadership before and after forging a partnership
  • A team of industry specialists assigned and dedicated to serving your organization with comprehensive functions in quality assurance, workforce management, recruiting/sourcing, training, process improvement, analytics, and excellence in customer experience for internal and external customers
  • A seat at the table to contribute input in the design and perpetual execution of your service program as a consultative and collaborative partnership
  • A partner that shows up to earn your business every day, every month, every year

2. Your organization gains the agility of a race car. Quickly stand up and call on flex infrastructure when you need it, whether on demand, seasonally, or as part of your ongoing service team.

racecar

It is an understatement that our times are very uncertain, yet most organizations simply do not have the resources or specialization to scale infrastructure up or down quickly as headwinds or new demand come unanticipated, and the business climate grows more complex with factors such as:

  • A pandemic-induced transition to WFH and a workforce that has grown to expect it. Bringing with it new employee workplace demands, resignations, difficulty with recruiting, training, retaining talent, and the challenge for organizations to overhaul infrastructure to accommodate virtual or hybrid operations while ensuring excellence in their customer experience.
  • A worsening economic environment that has manifested into hiring freezes followed by layoffs and other capital-preserving measures. Businesses face fallout from quickly escalating costs, missed earnings estimates, declines in consumer spending, supply chain interruptions, legacy real-estate costs, etc.

If pressures call for quick moves to transition front-line to mid-management from W-2 to 1099 in their respective roles, move brick-and-mortar service and support to 100% virtual or a hybrid of the two, supplement in-house resources with on-demand flex staffing, or upscale the customer experience altogether, “Boutique BPO” tailors full-time, part-time, or quick turn gig back office, service, support, or sales activities to deliver results.

3. Serving you becomes personal. Expect a fully personalized, intuitive, and adaptive service delivery process and tech stack to execute around your specific operational and customer experience objectives.

running man and gears

​If it’s your style, bring-your-own operational process flow, training curriculum, and tech stack, and consultative experts will leverage high-visibility BI and analytics with professional recommendations to dial efficiency and service excellence into your operations.

Or go part or full custom with a hand-tailored customer journey, onboarding, training process, and tech stack from a suite of proven technology options, formulated by industry experts to deliver prompt, professional service, well-received self-help options, and speed to resolution, delivered by highly engaged agents, personally invested in customer care.

4. You get to be choosy. Every service agent is hand selected for dedicated service, chosen to reflect your brand, community, and the experience you want to create.

Man on laptop working customer service

Want representation from users of your product, those who already have an affinity for your brand, or that fit the demographic of your target audience? You decide who you want on the end of your service and support line, engaging and serving your customers.

5. Pick the culture that reflects yours. Agent care is a core value that emanates service excellence.

people and gears concept

A supportive team surrounds every front-line agent, fostering a distinct service culture with high engagement, willingness to go beyond the expected, passion for the work, and personal pride in winning customers for your brand, taking initiative, proactively problem solving, and delivering a positive customer engagement.

In a sea of uncertainty, insulate your outcomes from the unanticipated with your own “Boutique BPO” operations, service, and support team who stands ready to cater and dynamically adapt to your business needs as other internal or contracted infrastructure cannot.

I’m Lynn Holland, an 18-year business development, sales, and marketing executive helping corporate boards and executive leaders to solve gaps in the customer journey, dynamically manage new and uncertain demands, seamlessly reappoint staff on a contract basis, upscale the customer experience, and deliver operational excellence. Like or follow me on LinkedIn.

How To Build Positive Workplace Relationships

How To Build Positive Workplace Relationships

Building workplace relationships is an important component of being successful in your career. This doesn’t mean you need to be completely extroverted in every situation, but it does mean you need to make an effort to get to know the people with whom you work and learn about what skills and abilities they bring to the table.

Although you are at work to do a job, it will be a much more pleasant experience if you enjoy the company of the people on your team or in your department, so try to get off to a good start.

The expression about only getting one chance to make a first impression is absolutely true, so make sure you put your best foot forward each and every time you have an opportunity to build new workplace relationships. If you’re giving your best effort every day, your co-workers will begin to realize they can depend on you to do a good job.

Also, as hard as it may be sometimes, try to have a good attitude at work. No one likes to work with someone who is constantly negative and complains about every little task.

Tips For Building Positive Workplace Relationships

Here are a few additional tips to encourage positive workplace relationships:

  • Be friendly and encouraging to co-workers.
  • Be responsible. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you’re unable to complete a task for some reason, make sure information is communicated to all team members who would be impacted.
  • If you share an office, be considerate. Find out how your office mate works and be respectful. For example, some people need to work in complete silence, while others enjoy background music. Make sure you’re not inadvertently making your office mate crazy with your personal habits.
  • Understand that people are unique and dwell on their positive qualities, not their negative qualities. It’s acceptable to not be friends with everyone, but try to at least be professional and cordial in your interactions.
  • Rise above office gossip. No one wants to earn the reputation of being the office busybody.
  • Communicate, communicate, communicate! Your co-workers are not mindreaders, so make sure you’re communicating with them and your manager on a regular basis.
Ultimately, building positive workplace relationships will make it easier to enjoy your job and grow your career. So, no matter if you work from home or in the office, remember these tips the next time you interact with your co-workers.

Need more help with your career?

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This article was originally published at an earlier date.

8 Ways You’re Being Shut Out Of The Hiring Process (And What To Do About It)

8 Ways You’re Being Shut Out Of The Hiring Process (And What To Do About It)

Do you possess the job search doldrums? Have you been looking for the next opportunity without having any luck? AND aren’t sure what obstacles are usually getting in the method?

Not really only are you NOT REALLY TAUGHT how to correctly job search, but points are changing all this time!

It’s exhausting to remain on top of all of the newest trends and techniques. Nevertheless, you still try job searching anyway. You try to try—and apply and apply—and still get NOWHERE…

Well, we’ve obtained a solution: It’s the upcoming live event!

In this coaching, you’ll learn to:

  • Pinpoint ineffective job search strategies that you’ve been implementing with absolutely no to little success
  • Implement a tactical job search plan that will gives you results nowadays
  • Stand away from benefit competition

Join our CEO, M. T. O’Donnell, and Movie director of Training Development and Coaching, Christina Burgio, with regard to this live event upon Wednesday, August 10th in 12 pm ET.

CANNOT ATTEND LIVE? That’s okay. You’ll have got entry to the recording in addition to the workbook following the program!

Sign-up Now Image simply by Bigstock

The 4 Amazing Benefits Of A Mock Interview

The 4 Amazing Benefits Of A Mock Interview

Job interviews can be intimidating, especially if you’re not prepared. There are a number of ways to prepare for a big job interview, but one of the best ways to simulate the actual interview process is by doing a mock interview.

Mock interviews provide candidates with an opportunity to test out their job interview skills with someone who isn’t evaluating them for an actual job.

If you’re a college student, mock interviews may be offered through career services for students or recent alumni. If you’re already in the professional world, a mock interview could be done with a trusted colleague, professional connection, or friend. Never do a mock interview with a family member.

Here are some of the major benefits of a mock interview.

They Help Reduce Stress And Anxiety About Interviewing

If you’re not sure how to answer typical job interview questions, mock interviews provide a great opportunity for you to “test drive” your answers. The person conducting the mock job interview can give you feedback on whether or not your responses are suitable.

They Help Boost Your Confidence

Woman smiles during her mock interview

Whoever is conducting the mock job interview can point out your strengths and weaknesses as the interview process goes along, which gives you time to address the weaknesses and build on your strengths. By having confidence in your skills, you will perform better during the actual job interview.

They Provide Constructive Feedback In A Low-Stress Environment

One colleague help another during a mock job interview.

No one is the perfect candidate, so mock interviews help you clarify responses to certain questions and help you work on areas where you may have weaknesses. In an actual job interview, you don’t usually get feedback about your interviewing abilities, so a mock interview is a perfect opportunity to find out why you may be having some difficulty in landing your dream job.

They Can Help You Prepare For Behavioral-Based Interview Questions

Women shake hands after a mock interview

Many companies use behavioral-based interview questions. If you’re not familiar with this type of interviewing, it may be advantageous to give it a practice run in a mock interview.

Practice makes perfect! Even the best athletes struggle without practice, so you should never assume that you could just wing a job interview unprepared.

Take advantage of mock interviewing opportunities even if you think you’re skills are at a very high level. There are things that we can all improve upon when it comes to making a great impression on a prospective employer.

While mock interviews are an important part of preparing for an actual job interview, there are many other ways to practice when you’re alone. This includes writing down and answering as many potential interview questions as you can think of and practicing over and over again. When practicing alone, it also helps to visualize as much of the interview process as possible.

Need more help with your job search?

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This post was originally published at an earlier date.

The Value Of Testing (And How To Do It)

The Value Of Testing (And How To Do It)

You receive a patch (with release notes) to fix a couple of bugs in your ERP. Do you really need to test, or can you just install the patch? If you install without testing, then you introduce the risk of having unintended results/consequences. Does that risk outweigh the time savings of not testing?

IT is responsible for understanding how the system is intended to be used and will do some of the testing but not all of it. IT performs testing such as unit, integration, and system testing. The business is responsible for deciding what/how to use the system. Since the business owns the system, they have testing responsibilities too and are responsible for user acceptance testing (UAT).

3 Key Components Of Testing

testing concept

The testing effort involved will vary depending on the type and size of the change (e.g. patch/bug fix versus major upgrade/release), but the testing process is typically pretty consistent. There are three (3) key components:

1. It starts with having a test environment separate from the production environment. Individuals can enter different practice workflows without affecting production. Not only can the test environment be used for testing, but it can also be used for training purposes if it’s not cost-effective to have a separate training environment.

2. Creating comprehensive test documents (test plans and scripts). Test for items such as required fields, valid values, and date ranges. Also doing regression testing and stress testing as well as testing system performance and interfaces. The business should specifically test different scenarios from “cradle to grave,” common processes making typical user mistakes, security profiles (including those who shouldn’t have access), reports, etc. Yes, the business should have written UAT test plans/scripts so that they know what they did (and didn’t) test.

    • Tip #1 – create and use a meaningful naming convention for the test plans/scripts. It will make it easier to identify the purpose of each document without trying to figure it out by reading the entire document.
    • Tip #2 – create a description for each test plan/script including creation date, security role, and any special data requirements needed to perform the test.

3. You need to have sufficient data (corresponding to the test plans/scripts) in the test environment to test properly. You can create data manually or use an automated test data generation tool to create test data. Another option is to copy production and obfuscate (aka obscure or scramble) any sensitive data.

Final Thoughts

tester concept

Issues discovered during testing should be logged on an issues list, tracked, and remediated. Once the business has completed user acceptance testing (UAT), they should formally sign off that they approve. Then it goes through change management, and IT loads the change into the production environment during the next scheduled maintenance window (unless it’s an emergency).

When you have the three components, then you can continue building on them. With each change, you add/clone more test plans/scripts to the testing documents library. Over time, you’ll have an expansive testing documents library. So, the next time you have a single patch to install, does the risk of not taking the time to test really outweigh the possibility and inconvenience that a potential outage would cause?

For more information on the value of testing, follow me on LinkedIn!

What Does Google Say About You?

What Does Google Say About You?

A logical place for recruiters to search for information online about candidates is Google, the largest search engine on the internet. So, when recruiters search for you, what will they see? Good stuff? Bad stuff? Nothing?

Find out what your search results are saying about you:

Nothing

If you are not present on social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, recruiters will never see you at all. That means you could miss out on job opportunities as a result. A Google search will show results for your name from these different social media sites, but, of course, if you haven’t completed a profile, you are invisible to recruiters.

Negative Press

Man looks something up on his laptop and phone

You may be present on different social media sites, but if the information there is negative, you are in a worse position than if there was no information at all. A sloppy profile filled with typos is negative press for you. And, if you have responded with a comment to a video or article with profanity or other negativity, this can show up on Google as well and hurt your professional image.

Great Press

Woman looks to see what Google says about her

If you have been intentional about your online presence, what Google says about you can give recruiters a reason to take a second look at you. Here are some pointers on what you can do:

  • Google yourself to see what comes up. You need to see what recruiters will see when they search for you. That way you can make any needed adjustments to your online presence.
  • Take charge of your ZoomInfo profile. ZoomInfo is a site that automatically collects data about people online from different sources on the internet. Sometimes there will be erroneous information on ZoomInfo under your name because the site confused you with someone else with the same name. Also, there may be information that is omitted about you that should be included. You can go to ZoomInfo for free and claim your name and correct any mistakes there may be. You can also post your picture to your profile if you choose to.
  • Create profiles on social media sites for visibility. LinkedIn is the most popular site for professionals, and there are hundreds of thousands of recruiters on LinkedIn searching for candidates. Make sure your profile is complete and it represents you well.

If you follow these tips, then you will have Google singing your praises.

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